The governor of the Central Bank of Turkey, Hafize Gaye Erkan, decided to move with her family to her parents’ house, given the high price of real estate in Istanbul, the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet reported this Saturday.
“We couldn’t find a house in Istanbul. Everything is very expensive. We moved to my mother’s house,” explained the 44-year-old banker, who has a long career in investment banking in the United States.
Erkan returned to Turkey from the United States in June this year to head the Turkish central bank.
Since then, it has raised interest rates several times, up to 40%, in an attempt to curb the rampant rate of inflation.
Last November, Turkey’s annual inflation rate was 61%, 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, at Goldman Sachs and at First Republic Bank.
Rents in Istanbul are rising even above the official inflation rate, due to the lack of new construction in the face of high costs.
Source: TSF
