Wretched day and apartment rentals

Alhamdulillah, it was a tough day today. Allah tests people he likes, so maybe that is a good thing. I don't think I necessarily aced this particular test, but I hope I scraped passing marks at least, in sha Allah.

Alhamdulillah, I settled on a place last night. It is a decent enough, though it could be in better shape, but alhamdulillah, very close to the office. I think around seven minutes door to door walking, alhamdulillah. That was the key criteria. It is theoretically a two bedroom I guess, but one room is very small and just has a chair, an ironing board, and some storage space. Alhamdulillah, it is just down the street from a masjid, which is also great of course. The realtor still has some work to do, even though I paid the USD 1500 deposit and YTL 1500 first month's rent already - in sha Allah, in the morning, he will bring a microwave, some sheets, towels, gas for the stove, and a carpenter to assemble a chest. I still have his 10% (YTL 450) deposit to make sure this gets done. One negative is that is on the fourth floor and there is no elevator (dragging my suitcases up and out from the rain was no picnic). Also, no fan or A/C. I may not need the A/C soon enough, but I have the fan on 12 months out of 12 if possible, even if it is facing the other direction.

I may as well post some "borrowed" pictures from the ad so you see what it is like:

I was debating between this place and another place for the same price. It was a very large, three bedroom, duplex, with two full baths. It would have been great if many guests were coming. However, many people are maybes (Phuppuma/Phuppababa), possiblies (Yousuf Uncle, Manju Bhai), or even probablies (Muhammad Baba/Atiya), but there really aren't any certainlies, not even Nayna yet. However, it was a bit further, with ups and downs, though still less than a kilometer. It was in slightly better shape, and it least it had working electricity for the first night (I am sitting in the office past midnight writing this), and had an A/C and fan and even an elevator. Heck, it was also adjacent to a masjid. However, when I tried to go down and actually measure the time, I ran into a bunch of unleashed dogs, so I backtracked and said forget about it. I only saw cats in the other area. So that really drove the decision (along with the 7 minute door to door figure).

I will be covering all of the bills in sha Allah - electricity, water, heating/natural gas, and the association fee. I hope the hit won't be too bad.

A couple of comments about renting an apartment in Istanbul. In Taksim or the more touristy areas, it is much easier to get a short term rental than it is up here. Three months is just not long enough for most people it seems, at least in this area. Alhamdulillah, I ended up with a couple of good options, but it took a lot of digging (and the use of sahibinden.com, which I eventually figured out how to navigate and what to look for - Emlak is real estate; Daire is flat; Kiralik is rental; Mobilya is furnished; Esyali also implies some furnishings I think).

Another thing about renting, it seems that the renter pays the commission - I paid 10% of the total fee to the agent. In Damascus, I remember that the owner paid the real estate agent. It just seemed wierd.

Also, I will be paying future rent directly to the bank account, not to the realtor or any real person. Same with the bills - I go to a bank branch and pay the bank. That seems odd, but whatever.

Now, for all the talk at my office about how developed the Turkish banking system is, the banks today really raised my ire. I didn't yell at anyone, but I was pretty furious and frustrated after walking around for five hours trying to cash my American Express traveler's cheques. I had only brough USD 3000 in cash with me and USD 2000 in traveler's cheques. I didn't want to use all my cash on the apartment, so I went around trying to generate some money from the cheques. Alas, nothing doing, so I just have a couple hundred dollars on me at the moment. Of course, I could use my debit card to pull money out of an ATM, and I may have to resort to that. Had I known that every bank in Turkey does not accept traveler's cheques, I would not have brought them. Live and learn, I guess - you can learn from my mistakes.. It is really silly though. The whole point of a traveler's cheque is to protect the owner in case it is lost. If a wallet is lost, there goes the cash and the cards. However, I think traveler's cheques are kept separately and should still be accessible in the worst case scenario. Not anymore, I guess, at least not in Turkey. Here are a list of places I went that did not take my traveler's cheque: Garantibank; Teb; Finansbank; Vakifbank; a local post office branch; various doviz/money exchangers; Akbank; Yapicredi bank; ING bank; Fortis Bank; Citibank; Deniz Bank; Ziraat Bank; and Kuvayt Turk Bank; all these banks said no way. Isbank at least tried, but one bank took an hour before saying they couldn't figure it out and they sent me to another branch, which tried to send me to the central branch before making an attempt and saying "the system is down, try again tomorrow." I was quite angry. Having no suhoor this morning didn't help either. So, if you have a traveler's cheque, Isbank is the only one that will accept them; whether or not they can actually cash it is another matter. I've read that larger post offices also may accept them. We'll see. Isbank does want to charge a hefty 8% commission though. It is almost better for me to tear up the cheques, have my mom claim them back in the US, and deposit them in my account for me to withdraw by ATM - I think Chase only takes a 3% cut.

Khayr, in sha Allah. I have enough cash for at least a couple of weeks so I can sort out these things.