Rise in housing prices accelerating, says state report

Israeli housing prices rose steeply in the second quarter of 2015, figures released Sunday by the Justice Ministry showed, raising questions about the public’s faith in the government’s ability to bring those prices down in the near term.

According to the Chief Government Appraiser’s office figures, the price of four-room apartments rose by 2.7 percent in the previous quarter alone, far outpacing the 1.3% rise in the Consumer Price Index.

The jump continued the steep rise that saw prices increase by 5% overall in the past year.

The price increase is accelerating, the report stated, with a far larger quarter-by-quarter jump in 2015 (2.7%) than in 2014 (1%).

The appraiser’s office is the state’s main real estate appraisal body.

“In this quarter [April to June 2015], the increase in prices was steeper than last year,” Tal Aldroti, the chief state appraiser, said Sunday, according to Channel 2. “This trend demonstrates that the public still does not expect a drop in apartment prices in the near future.”

The increases were not uniform across the country. Apartment prices held steady in the southernmost city of Eilat, according to the report, as well as in Tel Aviv, the most desirable metropolis in the country. While Tel Aviv’s prices did not rise, they were still the highest in the nation, the report found.

But costs jumped 14% in growing Beersheba, and rose between 8% and 11% in many major cities, including Jerusalem, Ashkelon and Netanya.

Until the March election, the public “was waiting for the results of the elections and the [new government’s] new housing policy,” said Aldroti, adding that this waiting period, during which relatively few homes were purchased and cost increases slowed, has come to an end.