Fueled by fear and fraternity, foreigners start buying up Israeli homes, just in case
With antisemitism on the rise and many wanting to be more involved in Israel, property acquisitions by non-residents are surging, especially in Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter
Earlier this year, with the country still at war in Gaza and recovering from the shock of the October 7 attack, Marc and Yael Azran bought an apartment in Beit Shemesh, a city of some 175,000 situated in the hill country about 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) west of Jerusalem.
The Azrans, who live in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, closed the deal in March. Since then the family has spent the Passover and Sukkot holidays in their second home, despite the continuing threat of rocket and missile attacks on Israel from Iran-backed groups in Gaza, Lebanon and around the region.
Buying a property in Israel was always a dream for the Azrans. Both had spent time in Israel on youth programs as teenagers, and when they married, they lived in Israel for a while. The idea was to someday return, said Marc Azran.
The push came after the October 7 events, he said, because the couple felt the need to “be connected” and support Israel, he said. Though they continue to live in the US, they now have a home to visit in Israel, and hope to eventually move there.
“I feel like it’s time for the Jewish people to be in Israel, and I want to be part of that destiny, and I want my children to be part of that destiny,” Azran said over the phone as he drove to his job where he works as an anesthesiologist. “I do not feel that there is a bright future for Jews in America and in Europe, in the long term.”
According to official figures, the Azrans are just one of hundreds of foreign residents who have snapped up homes in Israel since the start of fighting some 15 months ago. By all appearances, the trend is being driven by Jewish buyers who want to enhance their connection with the Jewish state, and by fears of rising antisemitism around the globe, which outweigh concerns about the threat of war or terrorist violence.
Antisemitic incidents have surged around the world since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which terrorists from the Gaza Strip invaded and killed some 1,200 people, took 251 hostages and triggered the ongoing war there.
According to data published in November by the Finance Ministry, foreign residents in September acquired 254 apartments in Israel, a sharp increase of 119 percent compared to September last year, and the highest level of acquisitions since July 2022, when the market was infused with post-COVID optimism and a lower tax rate.
Home purchases by foreigners dropped steeply in October 2023 in the wake of the attack and war, official figures show, but quickly rebounded, reaching pre-war levels by December. They mostly continued to rise throughout the year before the September surge.
“After October 7, for one month, there was nothing…. It was dead, nobody was calling,” said Donny Fein, a real estate agent who owns the Elite Israel Realty firm which focuses on the Beit Shemesh area. “It took about three or four weeks, [and then] the phones did not stop ringing.”
Fein should know, Beit Shemesh and the larger Jerusalem area are ground zero for the resurgent foreign buyer phenomenon, making up over half the properties purchased by foreigners in September. In Beit Shemesh alone, 87 apartments were purchased by non-residents in September, outstripping even the capital despite being less than a fifth of its size.
A Brooklyn native who immigrated to Israel, Fein said some customers had bought homes in Israel without ever visiting them in person. The buyers aren’t necessarily looking for their dream home, but rather to have a safe haven in their back pocket should trouble strike and they need to flee, he said. Until then, the foreign owners generally rent out their units on short-term leases of two years or less, to keep their options open.
“They call it the Mashiach clause,” Fein said, making joking reference to the messianic yearning for Israel deeply ingrained in Jewish Orthodox theology. While standard contracts in Israel contain no such clause accounting for the possibility of divine salvation, it’s an idea in the back of many buyers’ minds, according to Fein.
“They know that they’re not making Aliyah anytime soon, but if they have to, if the Nazis come knocking on the door, they have a place to go,” he said. “This is not 1939 anymore. We have a home in Israel, and we have a place to come to. This is what they say.”
Foreign home purchases in Israel are nothing new, and even with the surge in September, levels remain far below their 2005 high, when some 1,400 homes were sold to foreigners in a single fiscal quarter. But many in Israel also see the purchases as a scourge, taking properties off a market where demand already exceeds supply and driving prices higher. Foreign acquisitions in luxury complexes are also often kept as vacation homes rather than being rented out, turning whole buildings in prime locations into dimly lit shells for much of the year.
But since October 7, experts believe the purchases are being fueled by the same antisemitism fears driving immigration to Israel even as war rages.
According to data published by the Aliyah and Integration Ministry and the Jewish Agency, some 31,000 new immigrants came to Israel from around the world between September 2023 and September 2024. Most of the immigrants were from Russia, North America, France, Ukraine, Belarus and Britain, the figures show.
The city that absorbed the most immigrants was Netanya, followed by Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Bat Yam, and Ashdod.
According to the Finance Ministry, foreign purchases of homes in Tel Aviv remain near record-low levels. But Netanel Shuchner, the CEO of real estate firm RMA-ET, said his company has seen a sharp rise in demand from foreign residents for homes in Israel, mainly in Tel Aviv and Ra’anana.
Many of the prospective buyers are from the US and France, and Shuchner predicted even more people would also begin looking for homes in Israel following a wave of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel violence that rocked Amsterdam when the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team visited for a match.
“Following the recent events in Amsterdam I expect we will see a further rise in demand,” said Shuchner, who is also a lecturer in economics and real estate valuations at the College of Management Academic Studies.
A Times of Israel report on November 28 pointed to “unprecedented” interest in immigration to Israel among Dutch Jews following the attacks on Israeli fans and others.
David, a Jewish lawyer who lives in West Hempstead, New York, with his family, also acquired a home in Beit Shemesh some six months ago.
The house is rented for two years, and the idea is to eventually use it as a vacation home, said David, who asked that his real name not be used because of privacy concerns.
“We are not moving yet,” he added, though it could happen in a couple of years.
The timing of the acquisition was related to the outbreak of the war, David said, although the family had been planning to buy something in Israel for a long time.
“The war made us feel like it’s time to buy something,” he said by phone. While rising antisemitism in the US was not a driving factor, he admitted it may have played a role as he and his wife decided on the purchase. “It is not a conscious thing, but it definitely was in the back of our minds.”
Whatever the pull, it is strong enough to motivate buyers to pay above-market prices in order to have a home in Israel rather than anywhere else, Fein noted. He called it an “emotional premium.”
“People always said to me it’s not safe in Israel, but I always said at least in Israel we know who your enemies are,” he said. “In America, you could be walking down some random street and some crazy guy who hates Jews can literally just knock you out.”
