More than 5 million people applied. On Friday, in Adıyaman, the first of them found out exactly which apartment they had won.
The draw opened the next phase of what the government calls the Project of the Century: 500,000 social-housing units built across all 81 provinces by TOKİ, the state housing agency, under the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change. Eligibility lotteries, deciding who qualifies, finished on 27 April. This week's draw, the first to assign actual flats, was held in Adıyaman with Minister Murat Kurum in attendance. The other provinces follow as their tenders close, after which buyers sign their sales contracts.
The terms are the selling point. Buyers put 10% down and pay the rest over 240 months, 20 years. Monthly installments start at ₺7,313 ($156) in Istanbul and ₺6,750 in Anatolian cities. Of the 500,000 homes, 200,000 are 80-square-meter (861-square-foot) two-bedroom flats, 150,000 are smaller two-bedrooms at 65 square meters, and 150,000 are one-bedrooms at 55 square meters.
Kurum framed the program as a direct answer to the rents and prices that have climbed in the big cities. He said building in the earthquake zone had already pushed new supply into the market there, bringing some rents in the region down to ₺5,000 to ₺6,000. The ministry expects more than 2 million people to live in the finished homes and says the construction will pull along some 300 supplier industries.
The program is more than apartments. Alongside the homes, it is to build 500 neighborhood centers and 500 mosques. The centers are meant to fold in condolence houses, family health clinics, kindergartens, and gyms.
Kurum said the goal is to hand over all 500,000 homes in 2028. That is the number the project will be measured against, and the draws now moving province by province are the first visible test of whether the timetable holds.