Cost of Living in Istanbul

 

Istanbul is a place where nearly 20 million people live in the city meaning the quarter population of the country. If you check the land size of the city, you will see that it is not big for such a population. That’s why the settlements in Istanbul are congested. However, the debates about ‘’Are Istanbul an expensive or cheap city?’’ still continue. Let’s see what the reality is by the statistics.

Firstly, before evaluating the living standards in the city, we need to say that here is a city that enables all requirements for each class. Both expensive and cheap, it depends on which town you live in. On the other hand, according to the cost of living research of Mercer Human Resources Company made in 2018, Tashkent is the cheapest city while Hong Kong is the most expensive. Istanbul took 163rd place between 209 cities and 5 continents in 2018. It was 142th in 2017 and 154th in 2019. When compared to the world advanced cities, real estate Istanbul shines with posh amenities in cheap amounts.

Economical and political acts, fluctuations in exchange, inflation and the wavings of accommodation fees are in consideration at the stage of collecting data for Mercer Cost of Living Research. As always, New York refers to ‘’100’’ points in the research. Companies – which are willing to operate truly and right salaries of their important Mobil employees to hold them while promoting them to the outside of the country. When compared to the difference between the exchange such as Dollar, Euro and Turkish Lira that is between 6 – 8, we see that you can hold more money in your pocket by setting your business in Istanbul. For example, let’s imagine you need to share approximately 1500 Euro for each employee meaning +13,000 Turkish Liras. That amount is as nearly equal as the salary of high-end executives in Turkey. Depending on the qualification of an employee, Turkey doesn’t push your economy that much when we think of the minimum wage which is 2,300 Turkish Lira. Let’s see rental prices and apartment for sale in Istanbul.

First of all, it depends on what kinds of living style that you live in. If you want to live in a residence which is close to the city center, it also adds a great amount of maintenance fee because it offers you numerous activities such as swimming pools, security, reception, sauna, etc… Renting a luxury apartment in a high profile town will cost you approximately 4000 – 5000 TRY with the additional 1000 TRY fee for maintenance. Besides, food costs about 3000 TRY more if you generally order from outside. On the other hand, you can save 1500 of the money by making your breakfasts and dinners. Within the transportation using both taxi and public ones, it costs you 500 TRY more. At least 500 TRY for electricity, water, and gas in winter. The only necessary need to live is going to be nearly 7000 TRY that is less than 1000 Euro when we don’t put shopping, entertaining and luxury stuff for you.  Basically, 10000 – 15000 TRY is the lowest level of high class. On the other hand, you can decrease the amount by living a more moderate life in the way of not living in the luxury property in Istanbul or handmade dinners, using public transportations or get your luxury habits limited a little bit to 3000 – 4000 TRY. It’s also possible to live alone with 2000 TRY salary in the border of Istanbul but Living in Istanbul is not to be inside of the border, be near Bosphorus and the historical peninsula which was a real Istanbul once upon a time.