President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, “We are adding new products and services every day. We do not become complacent, we do not lose momentum. We never slow down. We continue on our way at full speed without slowing down. Thank God, we continue to meet every need of our nation and bring hope, trust and happiness to every household. It is indispensable for us that every family has a warm home, a safe house, and meets their shelter needs at the lowest costs.” he said.

‘Housing Project of the Century, 500 Thousand Social Housing Promotion Ceremony’ took place today in Başakşehir Kayabaşı District with the participation of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. At the ceremony, where the details of the 500 thousand social housing projects to be implemented in 81 provinces were announced, the sample flats of the new 500 thousand social housing projects were also shown to the participants.

In addition to President Erdoğan, Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Murat Kurum, TOKİ President Mustafa Levent Sungur, members of parliament, NGO representatives and many citizens attended the ceremony. At the ceremony, key deliveries were also made to families who were eligible to own a house within the scope of the ‘My First Home Project’ launched in 2022. With the project to be carried out by TOKİ by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, the opportunity to own a house under favorable conditions will be provided. While the slogan of the campaign, which will be implemented under the name ‘Housing Project of the Century’, has been determined as ‘Türkiye is the Home Owner’, the aim of the project is to create safe living spaces against disaster risk.

Within the scope of the new social housing campaign, 500 thousand houses will be built in 81 provinces. Quotas will be reserved for relatives of martyrs and veterans, retirees, young people and families with at least 3 children. Within the scope of the same project, the rental social housing model was also implemented for the first time. In order to balance the exorbitant rent increases in Istanbul, social housing to be built by TOKİ will be rented below the market price to citizens who meet the determined criteria. Within the scope of the ‘My First Home Project’ launched in 2022, key deliveries were also made to families who were eligible to own a house.

WE ARE TOGETHER WITH YOU TODAY TO INTRODUCE THE ‘HOUSE PROJECT OF THE CENTURY’

Making a statement here, President Erdoğan said, “I am happy to appear before you with our new projects and brand new investments, as always. I would like to thank you, my dear brothers and sisters, who filled this hall with their excitement and energy. You are giving a very strong message to everyone with this solidarity table. May God Almighty bless you all. May God bless our unity, solidarity and love. Yes, we have given the good news recently. We are together with you today to promote the ‘Housing Project of the Century’. Today, we are in our beautiful Istanbul with new hopes and new housing moves that excite all our citizens from seven to seventy. “I say ‘Welcome, you gave honor, you brought joy’ to each of my brothers with whom we share this unique pride,” he said.

‘TOGETHER WE WILL SAY ‘Türkiye IS THE HOST”

Erdoğan said, “I will soon share with you the details of this project, which will be a turning point not only for Istanbul but also for our country. We will start to implement one of Türkiye’s largest social state projects and together we will say ‘Turkey is the Host’. Before going into the details of our project, I would like to express one thing. Başakşehir has a very special position in my political life. We started our first mass housing application in Istanbul here. I laid the foundations here. This application was so successful that its fame was short-lived.” In a short time, we went beyond the borders of Istanbul and became a model that all of Türkiye takes as an example. Hopefully, this project will start a new era in a different way. I hope that our housing project, which is one of the greatest symbols of our love of serving the nation, will bring good luck to our country and nation. “I would like to thank our Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, TOKİ and all our institutions that support the project,” he said.

‘OUR DUTY IS TO ENSURE THAT THE STATE FULFILLS ITS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES’

Erdoğan said, “In November, we will have left behind exactly 23 years, that is, almost a quarter of a century, on the path of serving the nation. Look, when we came to power, we said, ‘Our duty is to raise the standard of living of our people. Our duty is to ensure that the state fulfills its social responsibilities. Our responsibility is to work breathlessly to be among the most developed and prosperous countries in the world.’ We stood by our nation. We have served eighty-six million citizens from the east to the west, from the north to the south, without excluding anyone. While the opposition produced only words and polemics, we produced fast and effective solutions to all kinds of needs of our citizens. With the principle of ‘Let the people live so that the state lives’, we mobilized the resources of our state for our beloved nation. My brothers, we are working with the same determination today. We add new products and services to our products and services every day. We are not complacent, we are not losing momentum. We never downshift. We continue our journey at full speed without slowing down. Thank God, we continue to meet every need of our nation and bring hope, trust and happiness to every household. It is indispensable for us that every family has a warm home, a safe home and meets their shelter needs at the lowest costs. “You will remember, we started Türkiye’s urban transformation campaign in Istanbul in 2012.” he said.

81 TO 500 THOUSAND HOUSING PROJECT

We are now crowning all these efforts with a new project. We are implementing the housing project of the century in Türkiye’s century and starting our 500 thousand social housing campaign. Now, I would like to share the details of this project with you and our citizens watching us on their screens.

With our project, we will build a total of 500 thousand houses in all 81 provinces. We allocated 100 thousand of these 500 thousand residences to Istanbul. We will build a total of 100 thousand houses on both sides of Istanbul. We will provide 30 thousand new homes to Ankara, 21 thousand to Izmir, 13 thousand to Bursa, Gaziantep and Konya, and 12 thousand to Hatay and Diyarbakır.

We allocated a separate quota of 5 percent to the precious families of our martyrs, our heroic veterans and our disabled brothers, whose relics we take care of. Likewise, we allocated a 10 percent quota to families with three or more children. Of course, we did not forget our retirees who worked for years and added value to this country with their labor and service. We also allocated 20 percent quota for our retired citizens within the scope of the project.

I would also like to express this: Just as we, as the state, are building all these houses, hopefully the youth of this country will build our future. Hopefully, our young people will be the architects of the Turkish century and the hosts of the great and powerful Türkiye. In this regard, we attach special importance to our youth and care about our children to whom we entrust our future. We also allocated a very important part of our 500 thousand social housing project to our youth. We allocate 20 percent of the kindergartens in our housing project to young people between the ages of 18-30. We will continue to support our youth in every field, from education to business life, from housing to transportation. I wish you good luck in advance.

On the other hand, the residences we will build will consist of 2+1 and 1+1 houses. All of our houses will be designed in accordance with horizontal architecture and traditional texture. All citizens over the age of 18 can apply to our project. However, our priority is our citizens who do not yet have a home. First, we want to make these brothers homeowners. Therefore, those who have a house registered in the land registry under the name of their spouse or children will not be able to apply at this stage.

Another issue we are sensitive about is this. After the disaster of the century, many of our citizens had to move from the cities they lived in to other provinces. Most of these brothers returned to their hometown after the repair and reconstruction works were completed. For citizens in the earthquake zone who want to apply for the project, a copy of the population registration certificate or a one-year residence requirement will be sufficient. I wish good luck to these brothers as well.

We continue to bring firsts to Türkiye. We are breaking new ground again, this time – this is very important – we are launching our rental housing application. We are establishing the rental system through TOKİ with this model, which will be implemented only in Istanbul for now. Within the framework of the project, we identified 100 thousand residences as well as 15 thousand rental residences in Istanbul. Within the scope of our social housing for rent project, we will share with our nation the quotas we have allocated for our workers and civil servants, our families with minimum wage and social rights, our young couples and our beneficiaries who fall within the scope of the urban transformation law, in the coming days.

Our residences will be rented at half the market price in the region and the rental agreements will cover three years. When the contract period ends, the evacuation and maintenance processes will be completed and the residences will be rented out again. The maintenance, management and control of these residences will be under the guarantee of our state. Congratulations and good luck in advance. Hopefully, we will be the first to deal with the exorbitant rent problem in Istanbul.

WE WILL CREATE A STRONG SHIELD AGAINST INCREASING RENTAL PRICES

Apart from this, our fight against the exorbitant rent problem will continue. Here, I would like to share with you the prices of our new houses in the housing project of the century. Our houses in the 500 thousand social housing project will be paid in installments starting from 6,750 lira per month. The sales price will start from 1,800,000 lira. These residences will be offered for sale with state guarantee, 10 percent down payment and 240 months maturity. In other words, our citizens will own homes in a long-term, low-payment and safe manner. In this way, we will create a strong shield against the unusually increasing rent prices recently. At the same time, we will pave the way for more and more citizens to access housing under affordable conditions every year with the circular social housing model.

On the other hand, we will make 500 thousand new homes resistant to disasters available to our nation. Applications begin on November 15, 2025. We will start the construction work together with the applications. We draw the draws in December this year. We will make the first deliveries in March 2027, God willing.

My dear brothers and sisters. I would also like to express this here: The housing project of the century does not consist only of houses. With this project, we are also building people-oriented and fully-fledged new living spaces. We will also decorate our cities with neighborhood mansions.