Rental Apartments Fiasco

Yesterday, I met two brokers and saw 7 apartments in the area  where I work. I am no construction expert or an engineer but, most of the places we saw had problems. There were cracks on the walls and when I asked about them the brokers shrugged it of by saying that the buildings settled since the area was earlier a very arrid place (read swamp). That's not good.

I know mom wants to access shops and everything easily but, the apartments in that area are built rather poorly, despite the fact that they are luxury apartments with very expensive rents and maintenance fees. They are built on former river beds apparently.

Istanbul is very close to a fault line which is expected to produce a large scale earthquake anytime so, the strength of the construction is very important.

It looks like there are only a handful condos out there which are sturdy enough and their prices are extremely high. May be I will have to get used to the traffic...

Also, most of the apartments had open kitchen plans which I truly dislike. I cook a lot and use sauteed onions and garlic. I also bake fish quiet regularly. Open kitchen is a bad idea for Turkish Cuisine.

The master bedrooms were mostly OK but the second/third bedrooms were extremely small.

So, I will keep on looking around and learning about condominiums. I shall see if I can find something that is both sturdy and comfortable. Bah!