Housing prices in Haifa have risen 7.5% since the start of the war, and is the district of Israel with the biggest price increases, according to the latest data from the Central Bureau of Statistics. The district includes Haifa itself as well as the Krayot, Nesher, Tirat Hacarmel and other small towns in the area like Rechasim where 296 homes were recently sold to haredi buyers in government subsidized programs.
According to the data, 18% of all the deals in the district between December 2023 and May 2024 were in Haifa. In the second-hand market, Haifa's share rises to 37% of deals in the district. The number of second-hand deals in the city (1,597) was the highest in the country during these months. Accordingly, the percentage of new apartments in all deals completed in the Haifa district during this period is relatively low and stood at 39%, compared with 48% at the national level.
This has major significance in understanding the price rises in the Haifa market, because the Central Bureau of Statistics data clearly show that the majority of the price increases were recorded in second-hand apartments. In total, prices have increased since the second month of the war by 5.3%, while the price index for new apartments has increased by only 2%. Since there is no index per square meter for the prices of second-hand apartments, it is possible to tap from the data that their price increased during this time by about 8%. And if in Haifa the percentage of all deals was greater, then the average price increases were also greater.
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"You see investors flocking to Haifa and looking for cheap apartments, which used to cost less than a million shekels, and today are slightly more," says appraiser Asi Avni. "In Hadar Carmel, a 3-room apartment was sold in February 2023 for NIS 940,000, and today an identical apartment on the floor above was sold for NIS 1.02 million. This is a huge difference for such a short period."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 16, 2024.
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