The worsening economic situation in Israel is spurring real estate investors who have been placed on unpaid leave from their jobs to sell their homes, according to the Ministry of Finance chief economist's survey for July. The survey shows that a quarter of investors who sold in July in the southern district had been placed on unpaid leave by their employers.
In all, 9,700 transactions took place in July, which is a high level. The chief economist does point out that the figure for July this year is lower than the one for June and for July last year, but those months saw exceptionally high transaction numbers.
One factor that prevented July's figure from being higher was a low in purchases by investors. The media reports that the minister of finance was about to cut purchase tax on investment purchases of homes made investors wait, and the measure was indeed implemented at the end of that month. Investors carried out just 880 purchase transactions during July, which is higher than the numbers seen during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, but is extremely low by any standards for normal times.
In July, investors mainly sold homes, some 2,000 of them. In the past four years, the stock of housing for investment in Israel has fallen by about 26,000 units.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 8, 2020
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