Hafize Gaye Erkan, the governor of the Central Bank of Turkey, has decided to move, with her family, to her parents’ house due to the high real estate prices in Istanbul.
“We haven’t found a house in Istanbul. Everything is terribly expensive. We have moved to my mother’s house,” the 44-year-old banker explained to the shady newspaper Hürriyet. Erkan has a long career in investment banking in the United States.
Erkan returned from the United States to Turkey last June to preside over the Turkish issuing bank. Since then he has raised interest rates several times, up to 40%, in an attempt to curb the rampant rate of inflation.
Last November, the year-on-year inflation rate was 61% in Turkey, although independent experts estimate it is actually double that.
“How is it possible that Istanbul is more expensive than Manhattan?” asks the governor of the Turkish Central Bank, who worked for 20 years in the United States, in entities such as Goldman Sachs or First Republic Bank.
Housing rents in Istanbul are rising even above the official inflation rate, driven by the lack of new construction due to high costs.