Housing affordability has been a major topic of interest both for researchers and policymakers in many countries. However, in the Turkish case, research on housing affordability is scarce. The problem of housing has usually been considered a quantitative deficiency problem in Turkey, and for many decades any other dimension of the problem is neglected. Increasing the housing stock in numbers has always been given priority by the Turkish government. This tendency to support new housing production has continued in the 2000s. Currently, the issue of housing affordability becomes a relevant topic of research and policy than ever in the Turkish context owing to the negative effects of policies adopted after 2002 on the lowest and low-income households’ housing affordability.

This study, considering housing affordability as a gradually worsening problem in the Turkish cities, has two major arguments: Increased housing production in the country did not contribute to the housing affordability of low-income households, and the extent of the housing affordability problem displays differences in different housing markets. In this context, this study empirically examines the housing affordability of households with respect to the mode of tenure, household income, and TR Level-1 regions. The findings of the study reveal that the extent of the housing affordability problem in Turkey differs with respect to tenure modes, income, and regions. For all income categories, tenants are devoting more of their income to housing expenditures compared to owner-occupiers.