Market balancing starts with the employee housing review

Market balancing starts with the employee housing review

The Turkish authorities announced their plans to finance for workers’ housing (lojman) from the budget and review building sites. These measures will be implemented by determining the cost of renting/selling properties and land plots on which these "workers' dormitories" are located, which are called lojmans in Turkey.

However, there is an imbalance: there are spacious apartments, the standard monthly rental rate for which exceeds TL 50,000. At the same time, an employee, for example, a mid-level official who occupies this apartment with his family, pays only TL 1,000 per month and pays utilities in the amount of TL 300. He doesn't need to pay for repairs.

There are workers’ houses consisting of 10 apartments each, while the value of the land plot exceeds TL 300 million, or buildings where only 3 out of a dozen and a half apartments are inhabited, and the rest are empty, or the same social buildings for employees that are not inhabited and are gradually being destroyed.

This is a waste of resources. The assets of the "state-owned apartments" serving as staff dormitories should be reviewed, thoroughly revalued and sold, or handed over at full value with cash transfers to the treasury, or reformatted.

The only way to generate an extra income of around TL 10 billion per month is through reevaluating and renting out apartments under different conditions. In addition, it reduces repair/fuel/maintenance costs. If, after a thorough assessment, additional properties and/or land plots are put up for auction and sold, experts will no longer be talking about tens of billions of lira, but almost $100 billion.

There were rumors that tenants would have to fork out for accommodation in "elite" lojmans. However, the question is starting to arise.

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