December saw more real estate transactions in Israel than almost any other month in history, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.
Some 13,400 apartments were sold in the last month of 2020, the third-highest volume in Israeli history. That was despite the fact that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Israel was under lockdown for about half of the month.
The rise in sales was attributable in part to rising wealth levels among Israelis as the US stock market soared. Record-low interest rates are also spurring buyers to take mortgages at record levels.
Americans are also buying homes at a frantic pace as optimism rises that vaccines may herald the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. The US trend for people to move out of cities and into suburbs seems to have parallels in Israel, as Tel Aviv was one of only two cities in Israel to see sales decline, with a 6% drop from the previous year.
For the whole of 2020, Israel had about 107,000 real estate transactions, about 2% less than in 2019. Sales declined in the first half of the year, despite strong activity in January and February, as pandemic fears scared away potential buyers, but 62,000 homes were sold in the second half of the year, the highest level in more than 20 years, the ministry said.
Some 1,600 of the apartments sold in December were subsidized by the government under the “Mechir Lemishtaken” program. When those are removed from the total, the 11,800 homes sold on the free market were 27% more than were sold in December 2019, and 15% more than in November 2020.
Purchases by investors totaled 2,500 in December, 65% higher than a year ago and the highest level since March 2016. The growth was attributable to Finance Minister Israel Katz’s decision to reduce the purchase tax for real estate investors in July.