Real Estate

Now it's official: starting in another three weeks, on January 17, the limit on taking out a prime interest mortgage will be removed, so that up to two-thirds of the mortgage on this component can be taken out. This is the cheapest component in a mortgage, but the borrower is also exposed to an increase in payment in the scenario of an interest rate increase. This relief will be relevant in three weeks to all apartment buyers (first apartment, housing improvers and investors). As for those who refinance a mortgage - he will be able to enjoy the relief a month and a half later - starting on...

March data on new mortgages published today (Monday) by the Bank of Israel were another illustration of how hot the residential real estate market is. Amounted to NIS 22.3 billion - an increase of about 7% compared to the corresponding quarter in 2020. It is one of the strongest quarters in the mortgage market ever in the country. In addition, the volume of mortgages taken in the first quarter of 2021 is 44% higher than the rate of mortgages taken in the corresponding quarter in 2019

The Bank of Israel has published an analysis of the housing market in Israel. Expenditure on housing services is the largest expenditure component of households, buying an apartment is the largest expenditure of most households during their lifetime, and apartments make up about 50 percent of their asset portfolio. Therefore, the rise in housing prices over the past decade has placed the housing market at the center of public discourse and government policy. All of these point to the importance of understanding developments in the housing market and the need for tools to analyze it. A...

The volume of mortgage performance soared in May to a peak of NIS 9.473 billion. This emerges from data published by the Bank of Israel. In May, there was a 14% increase compared to the amount of mortgages marketed by the banks in April, and an increase of 82% compared to May 2020 - which was affected by the corona closures. The increase in the amount of mortgages reflects the increase in the marketing of apartments, the prices of apartments and the upward trend in the rates of leverage and risk that buyers take on in the effort to purchase apartments

Over-planning, excess supply in the periphery and a severe shortage of apartments in areas where most Israelis want to live - these are the main problems arising from a follow-up report published by the National Economic Council in the Prime Minister's Office for the 2040-2017 strategic housing plan. According to the report, edited by Nir Brill, Daniel Schwartz, Avraham Zofnik, the most acute shortage among Jewish localities in Israel is in the heart of the demand areas - in the Tel Aviv and Central districts, where more than 70,000 housing units are missing. Last week by the Central...

The average mortgage taken by Israelis from the banks in May set a new record - NIS 879,000. This is compared to an average mortgage of NIS 866,000 in April and NIS 797,000 in May 2020. In the last five years, the average mortgage has risen by 30%, while the price of an average apartment has risen by only 15%, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. Data from the Bank of Israel published today (Wednesday) join the report of a record total of mortgages in May, which stood at NIS 9.5 billion. The number of loans for the purchase of an apartment amounted to 10,773 loans in May,...

According to data from the Bank of Israel, in June the public borrowed NIS 11.588 billion. This is a jump of about 93% compared to June last year, when only last month (May) broke an all-time record when mortgages were taken out in the amount of NIS 9.47 billion. Since the beginning of the year, the public has taken out mortgages amounting to NIS 51.7 billion, and assuming that mortgages continue at a similar rate, the public will take out mortgages worth more than NIS 100 billion this year, with an all-time high of more than NIS 78 billion broken last year. . The average annual...

The monthly review of the chief economist at the Ministry of Finance, Shira Greenberg, published, reveals unsurprising data for May, when there was another increase in the purchase of apartments throughout Israel. In May, 12.5 thousand apartments were purchased, an increase of 40% compared to May 2019 and an increase of 15% compared to last April. Comparing the level of transactions in the free market last May to its counterparts in the last twenty years, it is found that this is the second highest level, and is only ahead of the level of sales in May 2013. In the market segment of new...

Due to the peak data in the mortgage market, the Bank of Israel announced today that it has finally decided not to allow a loan to be used as equity to purchase an apartment. At the same time, it will be possible to take such a loan as a bridging loan for housing developers, until the end of the process of selling their existing property. That is, this prohibition will be particularly relevant to investors who are in fact leveraging an existing asset to purchase an additional asset. It should be noted that the activity of investors in the real estate market has increased in recent months,...

According to data from the Chief Economist at the Ministry of Finance, Shira Greenberg, in January-March this year, about 31,000 apartments were purchased in the free market - the highest level since the record set in the second quarter of 2015, which overshadowed investors' pre-acquisition purchases. This is a 39% increase compared to the first quarter last year, which was partly overshadowed by the outbreak of the corona plague. Compared to the corresponding quarter in 2019, this is an increase of 29%. Compared to the last quarter of 2020, this is a more moderate increase of 8%. This...