New apartment sales in Tel Aviv have fallen, and the city, which has led the residential real estate market in the past few years, reached only eighth place in the Central Bureau of Statistics’ new home sales table for the three-month period December 2022-February 2023.
Jerusalem leads the table for that period, with 885 sales. Then comes Netivot (492), Petah Tikva (343), Ashkelon (299), and Ramat Gan (280). In Tel Aviv, only 245 new apartments were sold in this period, down from 1,042 in December 2021-February 2022, when Tel Aviv topped the table.
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Also at the district level, the Tel Aviv area has seen a sharp drop in sales, although not as large as in the city itself. The decline year-on-year was 46%, to 1,211 new apartments sold in December 2022 – February 2023. The decline nationwide was 39%.
Inventory of unsold homes held by real estate developers in February was 54,500, the highest level in four years, and the result of a faster construction start-up rate than sales.
According to Central Bureau of Statistics figures, at the end of January this year, there was an inventory of about 15,000 unsold homes in the Tel Aviv area, indicating an accumulation of excess supply.
While new home purchases are declining in Tel Aviv, the national decline, which began in the last quarter of 2021, has stalled for the time being, according to Central Bureau of Statistics figures. 2,506 new homes were sold in February, which is an increase of 1% compared to January. This is the first monthly rise in sales in eighteen months.
Has the trend changed? Numerous private selling campaigns appear to have curbed the decline, which in the second quarter of last year reached more than 6% per month. However, special offers and discounts are likely to continue, and even grow, to keep new home sales at a reasonable level, and the market is still far from that level at the moment. Sales in February this year were about a third lower than they were in February 2021 and 2022.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on April 20, 2023.
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