No Istanbul is on par with NY in perhaps 1983, not 2006. Want a 250 sqm high floor apartment in NY facing Central Park? That'll cost you upwards of $15k a month, an equivalent apartment in Istanbul will cost you under $3k. London? Want something prime on Eaton Square? 7,000 GBP and up and not too many square meters for that. Want an absolute hovel in a terrible NY outlying borough, maybe it'll cost you $800, while an equivalent place in Sultanbeyli or some other godforsaked place will cost you $200 a month, if you don't just put up a shack yourself. In NY almost 100% of the housing stock is legal, in Istanbul 53% is NOT, yes, that's right, more than half of all housing is illegally built, not inspected and not officially registered. See that is the thing that Turks don;t generally get, yes there are is some incredibly pricey housing in Istanbul, but it exists in small islands, rather than as a whole - many property owners aspire to be part of the top, but there are few top properties in Istanbul relative to the total housing stock, furthermore when one adds the volatility of the market (That $350k place you just bought could be worth $150 next time the economy collapses, its happened many times before and can happen again).

Now back to the subject, as I stated, if its a good building in Kozyatagi, then its a fair price, if its one of the crappier ones - of which there are MANY in that area - then it is not and one can find a comparable apartment in better, less isolated areas of Istanbul (and I do recognize that the area is not as cut off as it once was). I do also state again that a 3+1 in Turkey at 100 (Turkish) sqm is absolutely miniscule.

Housing allowance? If that'syour game it shows why you have no idea what real estate goes for in different cities around the world, FYI I could go and quote Frankfurt, Munich, Brussels, Copenhagen, Seoul or at least a dozen other "capitals" where rents are not only cheaper than the "big" cities you state, but also cheaper than Istanbul in terms of value for what you can get in decent housing (afterall we're not talking about Gecekondus here are we?)

I agree with TP here, eventhough he's comparing it too extreme.
It's a well known fact that the prices in Istanbul are too high, the quality of the buildings is too low and people have fcuking money to spend and they don't care if it's a shithole.

I don't get it, a shithole, 1000 lira and it gets rented the next day.
Now why would you rent this place?
In Cihangir you need to look at 2000+ lira to get anything decent, if there's a decent place for less than that be sure that the 3 people living before you were killed the week they moved there.

I tried looking in Moda and found a gorgeaus place ther, but when I talked to the landlord they told me things like "ah, how sad, you live alone and you don't have any family here... we'll take care of you and you'll be like our son."
fcuk that, i pay you every month, you leave me the fcuk alone, now go get me some tea.

[quote user="worldtraveler" post="75115"]So what???

Have you heard of economies of scale?
[/quote]

What exactly does economies of scale have to do with the rental prices? I think that maybe you should be looking at supply and demand, not economies of scale. Supply of good properties in Istanbul is limited, hence the extremely high rental in some places. Demand is also high because of the sheer number of people living in this city, but some landlords think that means they can charge top prices for places that are really no great shakes. Personally, I think that rentals in this city are too high. If I think back to what I paid for a 3 bedroom apartment in Athens and what I can get for the same money here....

Economies of scale has everything to do with it.

I am repeating the same thing here. Istanbul is a costly city to live in. The food, gas, transporttion..everything is more expensive than the rest of the country. We are not discussing how it shoud be we are simply saying that it is an expensive place.. Whether you like it or not.

If in fact people are renting places asking outrageous prices from foreigners only then we can discussthat in another thread. Kepp in mind that Istanbul is not the ony city that does that though.