Does Re-Design of the Policies on Housing Finance and Supply Help to Solve Housing Question of Turkey?

Housing is one of the major socio-economic problems in Turkey. Widespread spontaneous settlements in urban area may be accepted as the sufficient criterion for the level of housing question in Turkey. Additionally, there are important quality problems in existing housing units. This problematic structure may be also explained by the lack of efficient housing policies and housing finance system. It seems after 2003 that housing policy of Turkey is essentially based on the Housing Development Administration_s (HDA) pragmatic approaches. In this context, we may argue that the current housing policy is one-dimensional and also would be unsustainable in some perspectives. In this experimental research, the author attempts to analyze limitations and clear/potential problems of the housing policies of HDA. We basically analyze whether affordable housing problem is minimize with alternative policies and required incentives. In this context, we review housing subsidies and PPPs as the instruments of alternative social/private rental housing supply models. In a broader perspective, the original contribution of this paper is to examine private rental housing, social rental housing, urban renewal, micro-finance and housing production of REITs as the alternative housing supply/finance models to improve affordable housing. We conclude that these alternative housing supply/finance models may improve housing affordability and hence minimize the housing question in Turkey, if they can optimally design and required incentives may meet by the central/local governments.