House prices in TA and J'lem stay high, periphery starts catch up.
By BUYITINISRAEL.COMHaifa(photo credit: Buyitinisrael.com)This article was provided by Buyitinisrael.com the official guide to Israel real estateCities and areas in outlying places in Israel are continuing to attract the interest of home buyers as Israel real estate prices in traditional demand areas such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have been sky high and the supply of new homes has been narrowing.Demand for the purchase of new homes in the southern region of the country surged by nearly 50 percent from the beginning of the year until the end of July compared with the same period last year. Another popular area of interest by home buyers was the Haifa region where demand for the purchase of new dwellings has risen by 21 percent in the first seven months of the year compared with the corresponding period of 2009. In the central region, quantity demanded of new dwellings sold grew by 3.5 percent in the reported period.RELATED:Gov’t to boost industry in peripheryMinisters approve NIS 200m. for peripheryThe bang behind the bucksFinance Committee okays R&D planAgainst this, the least popular area for purchases of new homes was Judea and Samaria, where demand plunged by 67 percent in the January to July period compared with the same months last year. In the Jerusalem area, quantity demanded of new dwellings sold fell by 31 percent in the seven-month period from the same period a year earlier. In the northern region, demand for the purchase of new homes declined by 5.2 percent during the reported period, while in Tel Aviv demand dropped by 1.7 percent.Popular cities for homebuyers include Petah Tikva where 391 new apartments were sold in the first three months of the year compared with 604 during the same three months last year. In Ashkelon, the number of sold apartments in the first three months of the year more than doubled to 299 this year compared with 142 during the same period a year earlier. During the first quarter of the year, 214 apartments were sold compared with 230 in the same quarter last year.Property sales picked up in Yavne from the beginning of the year after no new apartments were sold in 2009 due to a backlog in new projects. From the beginning of the year, 172 new apartments were sold in Yavne compared with a mere 15 in 2008. In July, 26 new apartments were sold in the city compared with 15 in June.Demand for the purchase of new apartments on a national level continued to grow and increased by 1 percent in the first seven months of the year compared with the same period in 2009, according to the survey published by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics and the Housing and Construction Ministry.At the same time though, in the January to July period this year, the number of new home purchases fell by a mere 1 percent compared with the same period last year, while there was an increase of 3.6 percent in the number of new dwellings in construction not for sale. In July this year a total of 1,139 new apartments in private construction were sold compared with 1,200 in June and 1,808 in May.However over a period of year the volume of new home sales increased. Between June 2008 and June 2009, the number of new home sales rose by a monthly average of 2.1 percent.
The survey also showed that the number of available new homes for sale is continuing to narrow. At the end of July, the number of new homes in private construction stood at 9,180, a decline of 5 percent compared with the end of July 2009. Out of the 9,180 new homes about 8,780 were still in active construction and the remainder 400 completed construction over the past 15 months. Out of the total number of new homes available for sale at the end of July, about 40 percent were located in the central region of the country, 24 percent in the Tel Aviv area, 14 percent in the Jerusalem area, 11 percent in the southern region, 7 percent in the Haifa area, and 3 percent in the northern region. Trend figures show that the supply of new homes in private construction for sale has been falling steadily over the past four years from a level of around 14,000 homes at the beginning of 2006 to just over 9,000 at the end of July 2010.This article was provided by Buyitinisrael.com the official guide to Israel real estate
