Try to think for a moment about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's true interest in the mess that has developed over soaring home prices in recent years.
His current interest, not the interest of four or five years ago. After home prices have already risen by over 70% since 2009, after hundreds of thousands of Israelis have bought a home (or lot), and taken on mortgages at current prices, and after the same Netanyahu promised us before the elections that we would see a 30% drop in home prices (all the way back to 2008 prices) during this term - but he also promised in the same breath that the housing portfolio would be kept by the ruling party, but the election results forced him to relinquish control.
Let us admit the truth: if home prices fall, the prime minister will be slammed for dragging the economy into a recession (this is the significance of a freeze or retreat in a multibillion shekel industry that is the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of families); the Israeli public will continue to crowd in central Israel, and Israel will continue to lose the periphery; the budget deficit will jump because of the plunge in tax revenues; and Yair Lapid, chairman of the housing cabinet and minister of finance of the State of Israel, will ride the success all the way to the top (and he has only one step to climb to reach it).
However, if housing prices rise (or even stay steady), Netanyahu will again be able to talk about the problem of governance by a ruling party with only a few Knesset seats; more people will move to places like Beersheva and Afula; and urban renewal and National Outline Plan 38 for earthquake retrofitting projects will become worthwhile beyond metropolitan Tel Aviv; the government will continue to collect at least NIS 10 billion a year in direct taxes and from the sale of land; and Yair Lapid will end his term with his tail between his legs.
So Netanyahu mostly keeps quiet.
When Netanyahu has to talk about the housing shortage (after MKs collect enough signatures), he focuses on the planning revolution by his party colleague, Minister of the Interior Gideon Sa'ar, without saying one word about the quarrel between Lapid and Minister of Housing and Construction Uri Ariel over the search for the winning solution.
It is impossible to conclude without a sarcastic note: when the housing costs of Netanyahu's residence in Rehavia in Jerusalem and house in Caesarea exceed NIS 3 million a year, maybe he is a little bit jealous of the homeless?
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 9, 2013
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