A foreign resident has bought a 202 square meter, seven-room semi-detached house on Shvo Street in the Carmei Gat neighborhood of Kiryat Gat for NIS 5.18 million. Carmei Gat is a relatively new neighborhood of Kiryat Gat, north of Road 35, which links the city to Road 6 and Ashkelon. Carmei Gat is based on a plan approved in 2013, which released agricultural land for the construction of a neighborhood with houses and garden as well as apartment blocks.
The house now purchased by the foreign resident was built by Dona Engineering & Construction, which won an Israel Land Authority (ILA) tender in April 2014 and paid about NIS 230,000 for the land for each house.
In 2016 the average price of a house in the neighborhood was NIS 2.1 million for smaller 160 square meter homes and NIS 2.3 million for houses of more than 200 square meters.
Until the end of 2020, prices did not change significantly. In 2021, a boom year for real estate deals in Israel that also saw rapid price increases, the prices of larger 220 square meter houses crossed the NIS 3 million mark for the first time. By 2023, the NIS 4 million mark was crossed, while over the past year, all houses sold in the immediate vicinity of Shvo Street fetched more than NIS 4 million. A smaller 150 square meter house was sold for NIS 4.2 million, and several larger houses were sold for NIS 4.5 million.
The house in Shvo Street was first purchased in November 2016 for NIS NIS 2.3 million from Dona. The "twin" semi-detached house was purchased a few months later for NIS 2.285 million.
The NIS 5.18 million for which the house has now been sold is a record price in the Carmei Gat neighborhood, and this is the second highest deal ever in the entire city. Last year, a larger, new house in Carmei Gat was sold for NIS 5.7 million.
NIS 5.18 million is very high and can perhaps be attributed to the buyer's insistence on buying a property in this particular location, or to extraordinary investments made in the building. Even in such cases, it is difficult to explain a doubling of the price and more in just nine years.
Brokers operating in Kiryat Gat in general, and in Carmei Gat In particular, agree that this is an unusual transaction, and even have an explanation for the price. The buyer is a foreign resident from the US. Brokers say that recently Kiryat Gat has been visited by several communities of US Jews, whose members often buy properties at prices higher than the local market.
"This is a very expensive deal by about 10% compared with prices in the area," says Rami Atiya, owner of a real estate agency in Carmei Gat. "The buyer comes from an American community that has recently been purchasing properties here. The home is a standard semi-detached house built by a contractor, there are no special investments in it, and there is no reason for this price, except for the fact that this is a buyer coming from outside. There is demand for land in Kiryat Gat, but locals don't pay prices of that magnitude. I estimate that the prices of land plots in the area will rise, because another 6,000 housing units are planned in the north of Carmei Gat, all of which will be under intensive construction, so anyone who wants a lot will have a hard time finding one."
The RE/MAX - Alpha franchisees in Kiryat Gat, Costia Goller and Artur Niyazov, say that they are in contact with Jewish communities in California and New York, whose members express great interest in Kiryat Gat.
"The prices of properties in Carmei Gat are high, because this is new construction that has also brought new price levels to the city," says Niyazov. "The transaction price is very high, and similar to the prices quoted by contractors who market lots. But the contractors market using methods like 10%/90% (pay 10% now and 90% on delivery) and they sell mainly to foreign residents. That's what happens when the Americans arrive. And they raise the price."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 12, 2026.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.