The past year has seen at least 13 people killed and 46 injured in violent confrontations between landlords and tenants in Turkey amid the country’s inflation-driven rent crisis, according to an opposition MP.

"This situation reveals how serious the rent crisis has become at a societal level,”  Gulcan Kis of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), warned in comments reported by Bianet on August 21. “Urgent” government intervention was required, the lawmaker said during a press conference held at parliament.

A recent incident in the central Anatolian city of Konya saw a military officer shoot dead his landlord and the landlord’s son during a heated argument over rent.

Given rampant inflation in Turkey, average rents have skyrocketed to levels exceeding the minimum-wage level earned by a third to half of the country’s workers. The situation is particularly acute in major cities including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

In 2022, the government introduced a 25% cap on rent hikes. But homes subject to new rental contracts were not covered by the cap, meaning many landlords tried to evict current tenants to start afresh with new tenants who could be hit with heavier rents. Great numbers of legal disputes between landlords and tenants emerged from moves such as this.

The cap ended at the start of July. Rent hikes matching the current official annual inflation rate, currently 62%, are now permitted.

Kis said the end of the cap would push many more Turk tenants to the brink.

This year, administering harsh economic therapy as part of the Erdogan administration’s bid to finally address severe economic ills such as rampant inflation and a crashed currency, the government opted not to bring in a mid-year minimum wage hike. This has piled on the financial pain for tens of millions of Turks. For many, it is the most trying economic crisis they have experienced in a generation.

Talks on the minimum wage increase that will be brought in at the start of 2025 are due to start in December.

The market would be concerned that a sharp hike could wreck the battle against inflation.

Deutsche Bank analysts Christian Wietoska and Yigit Onay forecast 2024 year-end official inflation at 42% and 23% for 2025, with room for price pressures to ease by more next year, Bloomberg reported on August 22. “This implies an increase for the minimum wage of 25-30% assuming a single hike for 2025, as it was for 2024,” they said.

“Any increase above 30% would make it difficult to achieve the year-end inflation outlook within the central bank’s inflation trajectory by end-2025,” the analysts added, concluding: “An increase of close to 25% would probably be ideal to both support the purchase power of consumers whilst at the same time limiting upside pressure on inflation.”