Accommodation is among the main expenses of thousands of university students in Türkiye. Those who cannot find rooms in state-run or private dormitories or those seeking a home of their own turn to rental houses. Yet, at a time of soaring housing prices, students face difficulties to find an affordable place. The situation is particularly dire in the country’s most populated city Istanbul, where landlords charge $358 (TL 6,500) or higher for decrepit flats.

Istanbul, home to the most prestigious universities in the country, also has the highest rent rates, which are expected to rise further when universities start their new school year in a few months.

Merve Bilkay and Hatice Çınar, two journalists from the Sabah newspaper, posed as students looking for a rental home with a budget of TL 3,000 to investigate the prices. The duo visited dozens of real estate agents but came up empty-handed in their search for an affordable and decent house. They first sought a home in the Eyüpsultan district but none of the four real estate agents had homes to rent and all complained that business had stalled. Their excuse was a lack of house owners willing to rent out their homes, seeking to profit more when the average rents further increase in a few months. Other house owners were apparently seeking to evict their current tenants, to rent out homes for higher prices. In Eyüpsultan, one real estate agent told the duo that the cheapest rental flat was priced at TL 5,500, adding that they were reluctant to rent homes to students due to the likelihood that they could not afford them in the coming months. Instead, he recommended the duo rent houses with more roommates to pay a smaller fraction of the rent.

In business district Levent, which also lies close to several universities, the duo found four flats but none were available at least for another two months. A real estate agent told them that landlords were not renewing contracts for current tenants and were preparing new rent contracts for six months only, instead of one year, which was the usual practice in the past. In Beşiktaş, one of the priciest but also the oldest districts in the heart of Istanbul, the lowest rent was TL 8,000 and the duo finally found a home, a very old flat with damp walls, for TL 6,500.

Nizamettin Aşa, head of the Istanbul Chamber of Real Estate Agents, meanwhile, warned students to avoid sharing houses with fellow students. "Landlords can charge an extra fee if the number of people living in one house is too many and they can even evict them if the number of people staying is higher than the number of tenants written in the contract," he told Sabah.