Rent expected to soar after hike cap expires

ISTANBUL

Many landlords are taking their empty houses off the market as a 25 percent cap on rent hikes will expire in July.

The government introduced the ceiling after exorbitant rent prices across the country caused uproar among tenants.

Now, landlords are not leasing out their empty properties, anticipating that the cap will not be renewed so that they will be able to increase rents in line with the CPI inflation, as had been the case before the hike ceiling was introduced.

Some realtors said that rents may go up as much as 70 percent after July in some provinces.

A large number of people relocated from the earthquake-hit provinces to other cities, boosting demand for housing in those locations.

“Not enough houses were built either during the COVID-19 pandemic or after the [February] earthquakes. Demand for rental houses is huge,” said Alpay Hacıoğlu, the president of the Real Estate Brokers’ Association in the northwestern industrial province of Kocaeli.

Some 18,000 to 19,000 students arrive in the city each year on top of the newly appointed civil servants, Hacıoğlu said, noting that Kocaeli also draws people from other provinces.

The cost of a house presently rented for 3,000 Turkish Liras will increase by more than 70 percent after the rent hike cap expires, Hacıoğlu said.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, such as in the province of İzmir, the number of court cases involving disputes between landlords and tenants has more than doubled.

“Courts are overwhelmed by such lawsuits. In 2021, a court of first instance handled 1,000 cases, but last year, it had to look into 2,200 cases,” said Salih Emrah Ertan, a lawyer and member of the consumers’ arbitration board.

He recalled that a recent regulation stipulates landlords and tenants should first seek arbitration before going to court. This arbitration-first requirement may reduce the burden on courts, according to Ertan. He cited high inflation and the elevated rent prices in the wake of the earthquakes as the reasons triggering disputes between landlords and tenants.