İstanbul’daki Evim (My House in İstanbul), a short-term house rental service in İstanbul, offers the comfort of home to those who reside outside the city but who have to visit for various reasons, often business, and are dissatisfied with the impersonal atmosphere of hotels.

Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Haluk Yunusoğlu, owner of Studio Rental Services (SRS), one of the few short-term rental service providers in Turkey and the umbrella organization of which İstanbul’daki Evim is a part, says his company is neither a real estate agent nor a hostel. “We started with two houses in 2002, and now we provide a service with 40 apartment houses. Our target customers are mostly businessmen who come to İstanbul for fairs, those coming to İstanbul for medical reasons rather than tourism and people in the entertainment world.

We have customers from Albania and Yemen who come to İstanbul periodically for medical treatment,” he says, adding that some Turks from Germany who come to Turkey on vacation are also among their customers.

Their apartment houses are situated in the Ataköy and Halkalı areas and are of varying sizes and prices. There has recently been a significant increase in demand. “Although we usually give people information about our service before they make a reservation, now we see that people are familiar with the service; they know what we provide and don’t need to ask questions,” he says.

The houses, which are rented for at least three days and at most three months, are decorated in a way that makes their customers feel at home. “If customers want, they can provide us with a shopping list and we can do their shopping before they arrive, or we can provide a cleaning service if required,” he says.

The short-term house rental sector is growing with more companies offering this service but, Yunusoğlu says, there is a lack of legal regulation. “This is quite a new system for Turkey. It differs from ordinary rental services. To avoid any problems, our customers sign a contract with us and we ask our customers for copies of their identity cards to give to the apartment block managers.

“Prices remain the same regardless of the number of people staying in the house, which is a big advantage, I think. Our customers are unaffected by the increasing hotel prices in İstanbul,” he notes.

Yunusoğlu says customer confidence and sincerity are the fundamentals of their company. As they mostly work with companies, Yunusoğlu, who is also a businessman in the textile industry, says they first check the reliability of the companies they deal with and establish mutual confidence over time.

DEVRE KİRA - A NEW CONCEPT

The Devre Kira system, which means buying a house for 30 days a year with a 30 percent discount and being able to stay there at different times during the year, is a new idea for the sector, Yunusoğlu says. Customers using this system can stay in the house whenever they want on condition that they inform the company at least one week in advance, therefore avoiding the stress of finding accommodation in İstanbul and being subject to increasingly expensive hotel rates. Customers making use of Devre Kira can stay in the house for one day if required, even though the usual minimum rental is three days.