How to find accommodation in Istanbul

Hi all! My name is Ivan and I am a photographer and videographer in Istanbul.

My wife and I moved to Istanbul in January 2022. At the time of writing this article, my Turkish language leaves much to be desired. In any situation, you just want to answer automatically in Chinese.

People often ask me how we managed to find an apartment. Therefore, although the topic of this article is not directly related to the topic of the site, I would still like to share this information with friends as part of my blog. Here I will simply briefly list all the necessary information along with video instructions on how to use the housing search application.

1. Navigation applications here, in my personal opinion, are worse than in Moscow and China. One of the more or less good ones to use is Google map. Yandex cards are gradually catching up. I like how transport arteries are schematically and clearly marked in Yandex maps and the local logos of the metro and other transport are used. You might also like this application
2. There are two areas in Istanbul where even if you rent an apartment you will not be given a residence permit. These are Fatih and Esenyurt

For the convenience of a schematic perception of transport (without traffic jams), you can use the Yandex Metro application and select the city of Istanbul. There on the diagram there is all the metro, metrobus, Marmarey at once.

Marmarey it's something like an electric train with subway rights. It’s like the MCC, only not in a circle, but in a straight line through the entire city along the sea.

There are metrobus. They fenced off two lanes of the road with fences and placed Ekarus-accordion buses there at intervals of less than 30 seconds. And they drive there without traffic jams or traffic lights at a speed of approximately 70 km/h. Of course, some people get seasick in them. They brake sharply and accelerate quickly, and they also sway a little to the sides like all buses.

Yenikapi is considered a transport hub

Sahibinden housing search application

It's something like Avito. You can find different things there, not just housing.

Here I recorded a video instruction for one of my friends. You can watch it too.

We are currently resolving all issues with Google Translator. Local residents react well to this. The application has a function to show the translation in full screen if you turn the phone horizontally.

Number 157 is the number of the migration service. They speak Russian there too. You can ask all your questions.

I wish you success in finding an apartment!)