The location of this property is great, located in a quiet residential street minutes away from the busy Taksim SQ and Istaklal St. There are steep hills all over Istanbul, so if you're traveling with elders please keep that in mind. You will have to walk up and down hills to get here but the house is located on a level street. They're doing construction on the block here so majority of the day and night, the construction crew will block the street off with their cars and make it inaccessible to a taxi dropping you off right at the front door. Location is also a 10min walk to Galata Tower.
The Good:
The check-in process was simple, Adem was very quick to communicate and even let us check-in early. The main level has a pool table and elevator which allows you to easily carry your luggage and groceries up and down between floors. The elevator only goes to 3 floors, the basement and rooftop floor is only accessible via stairs. Please keep that in mind if you are traveling with elders. The home has great views of from the rooftop and the 3rd living room area of the Bosporus and hillsides. Kitchen is well equipped with cooking essentials. The living room has a decent sized couch that can comfortably fit 3 people and two arm chairs to hangout and watch TV or just enjoy the view. Rooftop has a bunch of lounge chairs to sit out and enjoy the view. Bedrooms are located on levels 1 & 2 with a full bath. There's a half bath located on the 4th level (roof top) and two full baths in the basement. Overall the house looked like the pictures.
The Bad:
Upon entry into the home you're greeted with this faint smell of sewage on the main level and the basement level. The home needs a deep clean, the floors are a bit dirty, and there seemed to be a lack of detail to attention. Everything was nice at the surface level. We found cockroaches and spiders in the bathrooms. Many of the lights were burnt out on the kitchen and living room floor. When turning on the shower in the basement the water came out completely brown and then went to clear. There were also exposed wires in the same basement bathroom where it was missing a vanity mirror as well. There's also a bedroom in the basement floor but it wasn't clean enough to be used. The house can easily sleep 5 but anything more than that becomes a problem.
We decided to cancel our reservation on the first night mainly due to the faint sewage smell on the main and basement floor.
If they can resolve that issue and do a full deep clean of the home paying attention to details, then this would be a good Airbnb.