Everyday Negotiations of Finance and Debts in State-Led Mass Housing Estates for Low-Income Households in Istanbul

This chapter examines the Turkish State's Housing Development Administration's (TOKİ) mass housing programs for low-income groups, focussing on everyday negotiations of finance and debts in housing estates. The chapter draws on the findings of ethnographic research conducted in a mass housing estate in Istanbul, involving in-depth interviews with TOKİ households, real estate market actors, and experts from state-owned banks and TOKİ. The chapter traces the experiences of TOKİ homebuyers navigating through a private real estate market that emerges from the housing site as they mitigate current debt burdens with the expectation of potential financial gains in real estate. It examines lived experiences of indebtedness to understand how policy shapes relations of everyday finance, homeownership, and politics. Negotiations of finance and debt are theorized in three categories: housing provision, debt, and profit. The chapter argues that, in addition to being indebted to the state for their home, households become financial subjects through the credit systems of state-owned banks. In a financialized real estate environment created by TOKİ and its local partners, people realize that the houses that they had to buy are somewhat gaining value, which in turn helps sanction the neoliberal transformation of urban land and rampant household indebtedness.