In the second quarter of 2024, there were 12,900 building starts in Israel, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports, down 13.6% from the second quarter of 2023. This is the lowest figure since the second quarter of 2020, when there were 11,538 building starts.
In the first quarter of 2024 there were almost 16,000 building starts, so when viewing the situation over a 12-month period - a period of time that reflects less the effects of the war - things look less dramatic. Between July 2023 and June 2024, building starts totaled 60,300, down 2.1% compared to the preceding 12 months. However, excluding existing apartments that were demolished and rebuilt (mainly as part of urban renewal procedures), the number of building starts during this period was 55,300. Urban renewal represented 30.3% of all building starts in this period.
Building finishes in the second quarter of 2024 fell 24% to 12,400 compared with the corresponding period in 2023, although higher than the 11,898 apartments completed in the first quarter of 2024. Between July 2023 and June 2024, building finishes fell 0.8% to 55,800, compared with the previous 12 months.
There were more comforting figures on the number of building permits issued. In the second quarter of 2024, 16,600 building permits were issued, up 4.7% from the corresponding quarter of 2023, and up 12.4% from the first quarter of 2024. Between July 2023 and June 2024, 73,100 building permits were issued, up 0.7% from the previous 12 months.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 19, 2024.
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