Haifa leads housing price rises

Housing prices in Haifa have risen 7.5 percent since the start of the war, the area with the highest price increases in Israel, according to the latest data from the Central Bureau of Statistics. The area includes Haifa itself as well as the villages of Krayot, Nesher, Tirah HaCarmel and other small towns in the area such as Rechasim, where 296 homes were recently sold to ultra-Orthodox buyers in government-backed programs.

According to the data, 18% of all transactions completed in the area between December 2023 and May 2024 were in Haifa. In the second-hand real estate market, Haifa’s share rises to 37% of transactions in the area. The number of second-hand real estate transactions in the city (1,597) was the highest in the country during these months. Accordingly, the share of new apartments in all transactions completed in the Haifa area during this period is relatively low at 39%, compared to 48% nationally.

This is of great importance in understanding the price increases in the Haifa market, because the Central Bureau of Statistics data clearly shows that most of the price increases were recorded in used apartments. Overall, prices have risen by 5.3% since the second month of the war, while the price index for new apartments has risen by only 2%. Since there is no index per square meter for the prices of used apartments, it is possible to conclude from the data that their prices rose by about 8% during this period. If the percentage of all transactions in Haifa was higher, the average price increase would have been higher as well.

Demand for security rooms is increasing.

“You see investors flocking to Haifa and looking for cheap apartments, which used to cost less than a million shekels, and today they are a little more,” says real estate expert Asi Avni. “In Hadar Carmel, a three-room apartment sold in February 2023 for 940,000 shekels, and today a similar apartment on the top floor sold for 1.02 million shekels. That’s a big difference for such a short period.”

This article was published in Globes, Israeli Business News – en.globes.co.il – on July 16, 2024.

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