Purchase of new homes have taken a downturn: only 5,618 new homes were sold in February-April 2019, compared with 6,240 in November 2018-January 2019, but still 18% more than in February-April 2018, according to figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics.
The Buyer Fixed Price Plan, in which a large proportion of new housing deals is concentrated, is still putting small cities among the leaders in Israel in new home sales. In January-April 2019, it was the turn of Yavne to reach the top of the home purchases table, with 371 homes bought. Yavne was followed by Rosh HaAyin with 335 new homes bought, while Kiryat Ono (315), and Or Yehuda (309) relegated Tel Aviv (292) and Jerusalem (273) to sixth and seventh places. This indicates that few deals are taking place on the free market. Places such as Petah Tikva, Netanya, and even Ashkelon, which stood out with large numbers of new home sale in recent years, were left far behind.
The number of homes sold in recent months has reverted to the levels that typified the market late last year. While sales of new homes rose every month from April 2018 until December 2018, however, the number of purchases started to decline in early 2019. New home sales were exceptionally large in December 2018, but the monthly number of new apartment deals mainly stayed between 1,700 and 1,900 a month, with slight upward deviations, the largest of which was in December 2018. In 2019, the monthly number of purchases has been in the 1,700-1,800 range, exceeding 2,000 only in February, although new home purchases totaled 1,856 in April, a rather high number, considering that the Passover holiday fell during this month.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 13, 2019
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