Governor of the Bank of Israel Prof. Stanley Fischer told a Tel Aviv Stock Exchange conference in London today that 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.
Fischer said, "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 continued, "If there's something like a bubble, you don't want to take a heavy hammer and explode the whole thing. We have consciously taken serious measures to try and slow the rate of increase and not kill the market completely."
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.
He said, "We are worried because we can look at what happened to other countries."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 7, 2011
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