The crazy real estate market of Istanbul

We have lived in our apartment 8 months now.  And I love it.  Not necessarily our neighbors but I can deal with that.  We gave up a few important things when we picked this place, but the two gardens are well worth it!  And our landlord is just amazing.  He’s very nice and really makes an effort to make sure everything gets taking care of.
  I was utterly shocked at the price of living here.  Our apartment sold for $880,000 US dollars.  It’s a nice place, but I would NEVER want to pay that much for it!  But its probably because I’ve never really lived in a city like this.  I know NYC is this bad, but I’d never chose to live there either.  We were the first people to move in.  Our neighborhood, Istinye, is known for being a mix of poor and wealthy.  So you find compounds and large expensive single homes next to rundown apartments and shacks.  I kind of like that eclectic feeling Istinye has.  Our street is no different.  As of now, we are the only compound on the street.  There is a much bigger one being built next door and should be finished by the end of summer.  On the other side, is a piece of land that has two house that look like they’ve been thrown together with whatever they could find.  The rest of the street is a mix of apartment builds (some nice and others in desperate need of repair) with a few nicer single family homes by the Consult.  It’s also a very busy street, but the location doesn’t get any better.  Quite a few people have mentioned their shock of choosing to live here.  But it suits us.
That being said, we just found out that our neighbors above us are having to move.  They moved in while we were gone for Christmas holiday.  Until recently, the kid drove me nuts!  But now that I know him better and the kids love playing with him, I can deal.  His mom, well, we’ll never be friends.  I like the nanny much more! LOL.   Anyways, for some reason, the owner SOLD the apartment!  And not just to another landlord, but to someone that wants to move it.  How is that legal here?  This would not fly in the US.  The family would at least be able to finish out the lease.  And the sale price…… double the original sale price!  The apartment has only be finished since Nov!!!  So does that mean, we could lose our apartment too?  I know we only signed a year lease with the option to extend.  And the Ford lawyers worked on our lease agreement for a few weeks.  So I’m hoping we are good.  Because I REALLY don’t want to have a baby and then move!  We are finally getting settled!!  Rooms are getting painted!  I like that I can just throw the girls out the door and the bus is right there.  The pool has already brought hours of entertain and that’s just the waterfall.  Would we be able to find another garden apartment!  We have to have a garden now with the dogs.  Just kind of add some stress I didn’t need.  I don’t blame the landlord.  Get paid a bunch of rent and then flip it and make back double.   Our neighbor is Turkish, so she’ll be OK.  But her husband is rarely home.  Moving twice in a year by yourself, just plain SUCKS.
Thankfully, if this all does go down, Ford will be responsible.  There will definitely be a beach vacation to follow.