In addition, it cut its 2012 growth forecast to 2.8% from 3.2%, due to unstable global economic conditions resulting from the European debt crisis.
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30/12/11
Auditor General Micha Lindenstrauss slammed the Housing Ministry on its conduct in "vacate-and-build" projects.

"I recognize the frustration and inability to move [vacate-and-build] projects forward" Minister of Housing and Construction Ariel Atias told the Knesset State Control Committee today, in response to State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss's report that slammed the ministry on its conduct on the matter. "What's going on? "Like anything that involves a lot of people, it's hard to get things moving."

Atias said, "Even in projects marketed to one developer, there is huge bureaucracy for vacate-and-build.  It takes 5-6 years for a project to come into effect. Residents incorporate to find a contract; we don’t decide on the contract, because this is people's property… In the final stage, when the contractor is chosen, the residents want to get more. This is a problem for the contractor. They think that they'll make the fortune of their lives from the project.

Atias further added : "It's hard to execute these projects in the periphery. As a result, the Negev and Galilee get screwed ,it's frustrating to see how the wheels of state don’t work. "Vacate-and-build" is a great idea that doesn’t work for solving the problem of old apartments and building affordable housing".
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18/12/11
What has happened to the millions of NIS received by the government from the sale of public housing apartments to their tenants?
These sales have generated NIS 2.75 billion shekels, which was supposed to finance the construction of new apartments,however, only a few public housing apartments were ever built, and the money was diverted to other uses.
The number of public housing apartments has fallen to 75,000 today from 117,000 apartments in 1999, when the government began selling them to their tenants.
According to a report handed to the Knesset, NIS 1billion went to the Jewish Agency and NIS 20 million was used for construction in Judeah and Samaria.
Today, there are no apartments available for people eligible for public housing, and over 2,000 people are now on a waiting list.
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15/12/11
Israel's population growth according to the Israeli bureau of statistics is as follows:

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08/11/11
Israel's most densely populated city is Bnei Brak with 21,636 residents per square kilometer, Tel Aviv has 7,803 and Jerusalem 6,296 .
Bat Yam has 15,962 residents per square kilometer, Givatayim 16,647 and Elad 13,921.
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31/10/11
Interesting statistics...where do people live in Israel?:

40% in Central Israel

24% in the Central District

17% in the Tel Aviv District

17% in the Galil

14% in the Negev

12% in the Jerusalem District

12% in the Haifa District 4% in Judea and Samaria.

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27/10/11
Over 8 million living in Israel on eve of 5772
On the eve of the Jewish New Year 5772, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports that Israel's population has risen by 1.9% over the past year to 7,797,400 including 5,874,300 Jews and 1,600,100 Arabs. In addition, there are an estimated 217,000 foreign workers residing in the country, taking the total number of people living in Israel above 8 million.

Over the past year, the Jewish population grew by 1.7%,(almost 100,000 in numbers) and the Arab population grew by 2.5%. (around 40,000 in numbers) Israel's population is relatively young with 28% of Israelis aged 0-14 compared with 17% in other Western countries. 10% of Israelis are aged over 65 compared with 15% of the population in other western countries.

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10/10/11
Housing Ministry to market land for 6,300 apartments
The new tenders bring the amount of land marketed to 26,000 apartments so far this year.
"Increasing the housing supply is the main tool available to us to ease the housing shortage and lower prices," said Minister of Housing and Construction Ariel Atias. The road is still long, and we must end the ten-year housing inventory shortage, but I am pleased that the housing shortage is beginning to ease and that our efforts of many years are bearing fruit."
Most of the new land will be marketed in the periphery, including Beersheva, Dimona, Yeruham in the south, and Kiryat Motzkin in the north. Lots will marketed for 1,700 apartments in Rosh Ha'Ayin and for 42 apartments in Rishon LeZion.
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22/09/11
A brand new neighbourhood in RBS A:

Plans are under way to build the "Mishkafaim" ("eye glasses "in Hebrew
because of the shape and layout of the streets)neighborhood. This neighbourhood has been the talk of the town for years... it looks like that now it is for real. There will be over 600 units, that is one and a half the size of the new Ramat Shilo neighbourhood of RBS A.Large apartments and cottages will be
built. According to city council officials the homes there will be marketed to
the National Religious as well as the general public.
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21/08/11
Who owns the land?

As much as 93 percent of the land in Israel is either owned or managed by the state is coming under increasing scrutiny as Israel’s population increases and real estate prices keep going up.
In order to keep up with Israel’s population growth and burgeoning real estate market, The Israel Land Administration has to release Tenders for land to companies, who will build new apartments. During the recent real estate boom in Israel, the ILA has not been releasing new land fast enough and at prices that are reasonable enough for Contractors to make money. Consequently, new apartments are not being built at a sufficient enough rate to keep up with demand. Additionally, the planning process in Israel is the most cumbersome in the Western World. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was quoted this past week as saying that “it takes five or more years to plan an apartment in Israel."
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10/08/11
Netanyahu admits: There is no land to sell in 2012
"Last year, the Land Administration marketed all the available land inventory for residential construction."
2012 will apparently be a catastrophic year for the marketing of land by the Israel Land Administration. We know this because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly said so. A statement entitled, "FAQs about National Housing Committees Law" lists the advantages of the law and the positive effects it will have on the housing market. One of the questions that the prime minister had to deal with, as his statement puts it, "The opponents claim that there are 160,000 housing units the building of which could begin immediately."The full answer to this question is, "Not true. There is no substantial planning inventory of state-owned land available for residences. Last year, the Israel Land Administration and the Ministry of Housing and Construction marketed all the available land inventory for residential construction, effectively scraping the bottom of the barrel."Cutting to the chase, Netanyahu says that the Israel Land Administration has no available land to sell in 2012. After Israel Land Administration director Yaron Bibi met the government's target of marketing land for 25,000 housing units a year, for two years, there is concern about a severe crisis and risk of another price spiral.
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20/07/11
Cabinet approves NIS 100,000 per couple housing grants
The list of places where the grants will apply was also approved.
Arad, Mitzpeh Ramon, Netivot, Ofakim, Sderot, and Yeruham, in the Negev; Acre, Beit She'an, Carmiel, Hatzor Haglilit, Kiryat Shmona, Naharia, Nazareth, Upper Nazareth, Safed, Shlomi, Tiberias and Yefia, in the Galilee. Settlements in Judea and Samaria will be reviewed separately. Although the list of towns is final, it could be subject to revisions after four years, when towns may be added to or relegated from the list
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New home sales up 4% in May
Demand for new homes rose 6.4% to 3,162 homes in May from 2,971 homes in
April.
New home sales rose 4.3% to 1,683 homes in May 2011 from 1,614 homes
April, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported today, despite the Bank of
Israel's efforts to cool the market, by tightening mortgage terms, which
came into effect at the beginning of the month. .
Demand for new homes in January-May was 5% higher than in the
corresponding months of 2010. New home sales also rose by 5% over the same
period.
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08/07/11
Fischer plans new steps to slow home price rises
Furthermore,he was still concerned about the powerful rise in Israeli
apartment prices,
He said that in the light of the continued rise in apartment prices, he
would take additional steps to cool off the housing market and put a brake
on the price rises.The Governor added, "We are seeing a slowdown in the rate of increase in housing prices, but the rate of the increase is still too high. We will continue to work gradually to bring this under control reasonably soon. Fischer said that prices of homes in Israel had risen 50% in the past three years, and observed that this was higher than the pace of home price
rises in Ireland and the US leading up to the financial crisis in 2008.
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26/06/11
Home prices up 63% since May 2007
The Central Bureau of Statistics reported that the average price of an Israeli home rose by 15.3% between April 2010 and April 2011.
In the first quarter of 2011, the price of an average four room apartment in Israel was NIS 1,168,000 and the price of an average five room apartment was NIS 1,577,000.
The price of an average four room apartment in Tel Aviv was NIS 2,479,000, and the price of an average five room apartment in Tel Aviv was NIS 3,427,000.
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23/06/11
Cabinet OKs Plan to Increase Housing supply:

The cabinet approved a plan recently that would increase the supply of dwellings on the real estate market through changes in tax law..

Some of the measures include:
1)Exemptions on sales of apartments that served as offices and are converted to residences by the end of 2012,
2)temporary exemptions from capital gains tax on sales of apartments for investment beginning in 2013.In addition and in order to spread the population out of the center of the country(and decrease demand for housing in the already densely populated center), young couples without apartments, who purchase them in periphery areas, will be eligible for a benefit worth 100,000 shekels
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02/06/11
Minister of finance imposes betterment tax on second homes from 2013
The exemption on investment apartments will apply until the end of 2012.
His plan for halting the rise in home prices includes ending the temporary
exemption on betterment taxes in December 2012, in order to encourage real
estate investors to sell second and subsequent apartments before 2013. The
current exemption(of selling up to 3 homes exempt from the tax instead of
only one evey 4 years) applies only in 2011-12.
The second measure aims to convert apartments used for businesses back to
residential use. The minister said:"Currently, 50,000 apartments or more,
mostly in central Israel, are used for businesses by dentists, lawyers, and
so on. We want to provide strong incentives to sell these properties by 2013
by giving a full exemption on the betterment tax," said the minister Israel Tax Authority director general is unimpressed by the above proposed
measure. He said:"I see almost no effect because I don't see these guys
selling their apartments so quickly,"(because the longer they hold on to
their apartments the more they will appreciate in price).
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16/05/11

IS AN ISRAELI REAL ESTATE BUBBLE INEVITABLE?

While the housing market in Israel is showing signs of a bubble similar to that of the pre-crisis year of 2007, a similar collapse in housing prices is unlikely, say researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
They examined home prices patterns and housing availability in Israel form 1989-2010 and found that the average home price in terms of the average net monthly household income had risen to 60 salaries in 2009 from 47 salaries over a 20-year period.
Given the fact that the Bank of Israel is monitoring the situation and restricting banks on their lending policies, this indicates that a bubble is unlikely to take place.
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12/05/11
Number of potential homebuyers jumps
The March Consumer Confidence Index: One in ten Israelis(10.3% TO BE
PRECISE) is considering buying a home within the next six months

The willingness of Israelis to buy homes in the near future rose strongly in March 2011, justifying last week's new directive by Governor of the Bank of Israel Prof. Stanley Fischer to restrict the variable interest component of mortgages in order to cool housing demand.
In February, 8.8% of respondents expressed an interest in buying a home within six months; in other words, the number of potential homebuyers rose 17% within a month.
"Willingness to buy a home" includes people who have already decided to buy a new or second-hand home, and people still deliberating whether to buy.
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06/04/11
Mishkan Index shows homebuyers in worst position since 2003
Bank Hapoalim: The rise in home prices and the mortgage interest rate hikes
means homebuyers' conditions deteriorated further in February.

The average interest rate on 17-20 year housing loans (fixed-interest, CPI-linked loans) rose by 0.02 percentage points in February to 3.10% from 3.08%. The average national wage barely changed. However, the unemployment rate fell to 6.1% in trend figures, which partly offset the drop in the index. In mid-March, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported a 0.9% rise in home prices in February, and a 16.3% rise over the previous 12 months. Home prices have risen 60% since the low point in mid-2007. The Mishkan Index examines the condition of homebuyers on the basis of four variables: home prices, the unemployment rate, mortgage interest rates, and the average national salary
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23/03/11
"Israel's skyscrapers are dwarfs"
The global real estate industry is reaching for the sky, and new figures state that 2010 broke new records for skyscrapers,4 skyscrapers over 400 meters high were completed in 2010 worldwide, taking the first, fourth, seventh, and ninth places as the world's tallest buildings. There are now 12 skyscrapers over 400 meters high in the world.

Israel has only one building that qualifies as a skyscraper (over 200 meters high) - the Moshe Aviv Tower in Ramat Gan, which was completed in 2000. Despite all the construction going on, and the highly publicized tower, Israel is not taking its place in the world of skyscrapers.The ostensibly tall towers that we see in Israel are dwarfs compared with the skyscrapers under construction in the world today.Israel has the know-how to build skyscrapers , however, few developers want to build skyscrapers in Israel. The problem is that a developer who wants to build a skyscraper faces opposition from the Israel Airports Authority and other statutory bodies, which strangle such initiatives. Israeli citizens will therefore continue to look enviously at skyscraper construction around the world, in ostensibly Third World countries, and will only be left with the option of visiting these skyscrapers as tourists.Since skyscrapers are an excellent solution to a shortage of land( which is growing worse in Israel), they ought to be rising here, but...Israel's real estate market cannot cope with skyscrapers. First, the higher a building the higher the management and maintenance costs, rendering such buildings unsuitable for residences for most of the population,only the very welthy can afford it.Secondly, tall buildings are more suited to new neighborhoods where residents are less worried about saving their vistas, removing the problem of mass objections against the construction of high-rises in older neighborhoods.
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15/03/11
"We are raising entire generations who live with their parents. What's next? To
live with grandma and grandpa?"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will submit to the cabinet a new plan aimed at dealing with the housing shortage. The plan includes the construction of thousands of housing units nationwide over the next 18 months.Netanyahu said"I have no illusions,there will be objections...". Netanyahu added, "We must take drastic action. I am determined to undertake this reform. We don t have years. I am sick of waiting. We won't wait any more!" Under Netanyahu's plan, national housing commissions will be established to bypass the bureaucracy of local and regional planning and building commissions, and will concentrate all decisions as a one-stop-shop. The new commissions will be set up for 18-month periods. They are intended to deal with the housing shortage, which currently stands at 100,000 apartments. The reform was formulated together with Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz and Minister of Housing and Construction Ariel Atias. It will apply only to apartments in the housing starts market above a certain height, which has not yet been decided. it will apply nationwide also including high demand areas."We must close the gaps," declared Netanyahu. "A combination of reforms at the Israel Land Administration and a road bypassing the planning commissions is the only way to deal with the housing shortage."
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28/02/11
140,000 empty apartments in Israel
The government is now working on a plan to tax owners of empty apartments.
The Central Bureau of Statistics reports that the number of empty apartments in Israel rose from 97,404 in 2000 to 140,300 in 2009(a 44% increase).
Occupation of even some of these apartments would greatly boost the housing supply and dramatically narrow the demand/supply gap.An empty apartment is defined as an apartment that is not permanently occupied for any reason, for example because it has been purchased by a foreign resident, has been transferred to heirs and is subject to an ownership dispute, is a holiday apartments, or has been sealed or abandoned, or is in ruins.The government is now working on a plan to tax owners of empty apartments, in order to render it not worthwhile to keep them in that condition. It remains to be seen if this will bring homes onto the market and lower prices.
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21/02/11
Finance Commitee: Raise 1st home purchase tax threshold to NIS 1.6m
Most apartments in high demand areas cost more than NIS 1.2 million.
Knesset Finance Committee chairman MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) told the government to raise the purchase tax threshold on a first home to NIS 1.6 million from the current NIS 1,139,000. He cited the fact that most apartments in high demand areas cost more than NIS 1.2 million. Ministry of Finance housing coordinator Reuven Kogan said that widening the purchase tax brackets and raising the threshold would affect tax revenuesand said that the median home price was NIS 865,000, so there was no genuine need to raise the tax threshold. He further stated that, in 2010, 67% of buyers of a first home were exempt from the purchase tax, and that if the threshold were raised to NIS 1.4 million, the exemption would apply to 90% of buyers of first homes.
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20/02/11
Housing demand up 13% in December
New home sales rose 10% in 2010.
Housing demand rose 13% in December 2010, compared with November of the same year, the Central Bureau of Statistics in Israel reported today,
21,498 new homes (both privately and publicly built) were sold in 2010, 10% more than the 19,975 new homes sold in 2009. Petah Tikva was the city with the highest demand for new homes in 2010, at 2,453 apartments, of which 2,268 were sold. It was followed by Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Ashkelon(where sales almost doubled compared with 2009), Netanya, Rishon LeZion, Kfar Saba, Ashdod, Rehovot, and Beersheva.
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13/02/11
Consumer Confidence Index points to strong housing demand
11.6% of respondents in the January survey are interested in buying an
apartment in the next six months, up from 7.8% in December.
11.6% of respondents in the Consumer Confidence Index, compiled by Globes Research and Price Waterhouse Coopers CPAs Israel, for January 2011 say that they are interested in buying an apartment in next six months, up from 7.8% of respondents in December 2010. This is the largest monthly increase since 2009, and indicates the highest interest in buying a home since early 2010.
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30/01/11
Bank Leumi is predicting that home prices in Israel, will rise by 5 to 10% in 2011.
They claim that in spite of efforts to increase the supply of apartments, the bank believes that demand will still outstrip supply in the near future.
Furthermore, the bank expects the inventory of homes for sale to remain low and so will interest rates,this will reflect further price rises, although at a much more moderate rate than in the last few years.
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