Iggudim, Union Bank’s real estate company, has leased a 580 sq. m. branch on the ground floor of a building at 22 Weizmann Street, central Netanya, from American-Israel Bank of the Bank Hapoalim group. The rent has been set at $22.9 per sq. m. per month, which amounts to some $160,000 per annum. The five-year contract is index-linked.
The deal was done through David Baroty, manager of the shops and chain stores department at Anglo-Saxon Tel Aviv. Anglo-Saxon succeeded in putting together an unusual deal, in that one bank is leasing property from another. Union Bank’s Netanya branch is presently situated at 23 Zion Square.
In another banking deal, also done through Anglo-Saxon Tel Aviv, Bank Leumi has leased from Ashlad a 203 sq. m. branch in the commercial centre the company has constructed in Modi’in. The rent is $6,000 per month, or $32.5 per sq. m. per month. The lease is index-linked, for five years, with an option for another five. The commercial centre, which includes a Super Sol store, is about to be opened.
A comparison between the two deals reveals that the rent for the Modi’in bank branch is 42% higher than the rent being paid by a bank in the middle of Netanya. It is believed that this is due to the fact that in Modi’in, which will shortly experience an influx of thousands of families, there are only a few bank branches, whereas there are about 20 commercial bank branches, and ten mortgage bank branches, in Netanya. Another reason is that there are only a few commercial centres in Modi’in, and almost all the space in them has already been sold or let.