Globes reports that  Israel's real estate market frozen although prices are not yet falling. Although the latest index showed that housing prices rose 0.1% between November-December 2022 and December-January 2023, it seems likely that the trend will change soon. If three months ago housing prices were rising at an annual rate of 20%, the annual rate has already fallen to 14.6%.

New apartments respond more quickly to changing trends and "Globes" calculates that after taking out new apartments in the government Mechir Lemishtaken program, prices have fallen 4.7% between November-December 2022 and December-January 2023 and at an annual rate of 20%. The average new apartment has already fallen NIS 90,000 in price.

The real estate surveys of the Central Bureau of Statistics and chief economist as well as the Bank of Israel's mortgage survey published earlier this week, reinforce the assessment that the market is in rapid decline. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, there is a 4.3% decrease in the number of new apartment purchases each month. This is a very fast decline, which a few months ago was even faster, and it is this that forced developers to introduce price cuts, which slows down the decline in sales, but has still left developers stuck with an inventory of about 53,000 unsold apartments and with commitments to start projects where presale deals have been completed.

Source - Globes/Twitter - Image - Miriam Alster/Flash90