Tel Aviv Resale Prices Just Fell 23% in One District

Sunday’s news is about the gap between what the market looks like and what it is.

The big one: a new study by appraiser Dr Assaf Gastfreund, reported by Globes, tracked 371 second-hand apartment sales in two central Tel Aviv districts from January 2023 to mid-July 2026. In Rova 3, the heart of the city, the median price per square meter fell 23.3%. In Rova 4 it fell 7.75%. This is one appraiser’s work, not an official index, but the method is clear and it uses only resale deals, where the reported price is the real price.

At the same time, bank money keeps flowing to builders. TheMarker reports that lending by the five largest banks to the construction and real estate sector rose by NIS 265 billion over five years, to NIS 485 billion, while more than 84,000 new apartments sit unsold.

And June set a mortgage record of NIS 11.05 billion, per ice quoting Bank of Israel and Finance Ministry data. That is not a recovery. The Finance Ministry says it is money finally arriving from apartments people bought on paper back in 2024.

Other verified numbers today: the Bank of Israel rate is 3.5%, set on 6 July and holding until at least 1 September. Inflation is 1.6% over the past 12 months. An unfinished house shell in a moshav sold for NIS 4.1 million. A Shoham penthouse sold for NIS 5.3 million after six months on the market, NIS 370,000 under its asking price. Out in the Binyamina and Pardes Hanna area, closed sales put a family house at NIS 4.885 million to NIS 5.63 million, while the average Harish apartment is about NIS 1.5 million.

Two long-running problems also got fresh detail today: urban renewal projects are quietly changing developers mid-build, and the sector’s own numbers say a renewal project takes 7 to 15 years.

Central Tel Aviv resale prices are 23% below early 2023

Start with what the study is. Dr Assaf Gastfreund, a licensed real estate appraiser, looked only at second-hand sales, meaning apartments sold by an owner rather than by a builder. He also used only apartments more than five years old, and he removed unusual deals. He then took the median price per square meter, which is the middle price, not the average.

He chose resale deals on purpose. When a builder sells a new apartment, the price filed with the Tax Authority often hides discounts: soft payment terms, a kitchen upgrade, free furniture, or no index linking. In his words, none of that shows up in the reported price. In a resale, the reported price is what was actually paid.

Here is what he found, in shekels per square meter.

Two size bands held roughly steady: 80 to 100 sqm in both districts, and the larger flats in Rova 4. Very small units, 20 to 40 sqm, actually rose, but on too few deals to call a trend. Gastfreund also notes that these are nominal numbers. After inflation over the same years, the real loss of value is larger.

Our own calculation. Take the Rova 3 small-flat band, 40 to 60 sqm. The median fell from NIS 72,600 to NIS 62,500 per square meter, a drop of NIS 10,100. On a 50 sqm apartment that is 50 times 10,100, or about NIS 505,000 of nominal value gone since early 2023. Check it yourself: the two published medians, times the floor area.

Why it matters. If you are buying a small older flat in central Tel Aviv, the seller’s 2022 asking price is not a reference point any more. If you are selling, the deals closing around you are not the deals you remember. This is a district-level picture from one appraiser, so treat it as a strong signal rather than a settled fact, and ask your own agent for the last four comparable sales on the street.

Banks are lending more to builders, not less

The paradox in one line: apartment sales are weak, unsold stock is at a record, and bank credit to the people building those apartments keeps climbing.

TheMarker, in a piece by banking correspondent Michael Rochwarger published this morning, puts the five largest banks’ lending to the construction and real estate sector at NIS 485 billion, up by NIS 265 billion over five years. It also cites a record of more than 84,000 unsold new apartments, and the current Bank of Israel rate of 3.5%.

One honest caveat. We could not match that NIS 485 billion to any Bank of Israel figure we could verify independently, and the article does not say whether it counts only loans on the balance sheet or also credit lines and guarantees. Published Bank of Israel figures for the five banking groups’ balance-sheet credit to this sector are considerably lower. So we report the NIS 485 billion as TheMarker’s figure, not as a confirmed official number.

What we can verify from Bank of Israel data, via Mako: credit for residential construction projects at the five biggest banking groups jumped about 40% during 2025, from NIS 49 billion to NIS 69 billion. Construction and real estate now make up roughly 39% of the banks’ business lending and about 21% of all their lending to the public.

The mechanism is worth understanding, because it is not reckless lending for its own sake. When a builder sells apartments on very soft terms, the buyer pays little up front. The builder still has to pay for concrete, steel and workers now. Somebody has to bridge that gap for years, and that somebody is the bank.

Why it matters. For a buyer, this is the quiet reason your builder can offer you a deal that looks too generous. The risk sits with the bank until you hand over the balance. If you want the buyer-side view of that balance, we have already covered it in The 80% Bill Comes Due for Israel’s Paper Buyers.

June’s record mortgage month is an echo, not a rebound

Israelis took NIS 11.05 billion of mortgages in June 2026. That is the kind of number the market last saw in 2021, when prices were racing up. Sales today are slow. So what happened?

The first guess was refinancing. Rates have been coming down, so people redo their loan, and the bank records it as a new mortgage. The Bank of Israel numbers, as reported by ice, do not support that. Loans excluding refinancing came to NIS 10.2 billion, still among the highest in years.

Our own calculation. NIS 11.05 billion total minus NIS 10.2 billion of fresh loans leaves about NIS 0.85 billion of refinancing. That is roughly 7.7% of the month, so more than 92% of June’s mortgage money was genuinely new borrowing. Basis: the two published Bank of Israel figures, subtracted and divided.

The Finance Ministry’s explanation is timing. Galit Ben Naim, deputy chief economist, points to paper sales. When you buy a second-hand flat you take the mortgage within weeks. When you buy a new flat off plan, especially under a 20/80 deal where most of the money is due near handover, you may not take the mortgage for two or three years. So a lot of the money moving in June belongs to apartments bought in 2024.

She adds a hard number on how far the new-build market fell: the number of new apartments bought on the open market dropped 34% in 2025 compared with 2024, once the Bank of Israel limited developer financing perks. Government-subsidised sales show almost no gap between deals and mortgages, because those buyers borrow on a normal timetable.

Why it matters. Do not read a big mortgage month as a market turning up. It can mean the opposite: a wave of 2024 buyers reaching the moment when the real payment lands. For the wider mortgage picture we already cover, see Record Share of Israeli Mortgages Went Upmarket.

An unfinished house sold for NIS 4.1 million. Here is the full sum

A shell, in building terms, is a house with structure but no finish. Walls and floors exist. Kitchen, bathrooms, plaster, tiles and systems do not.

In Moshav Kfar Warburg, in the south, one such shell just sold for NIS 4.1 million, per Globes. The plot is registered at 500 sqm. The shell runs to about 290 sqm across three levels: roughly 70 sqm of basement, 135 sqm at entrance level and 85 sqm on the first floor.

The land value is anchored by two real reference points. The neighbouring plot, the same size, sold for NIS 3.2 million about two and a half years ago. And a few months ago the Israel Land Authority ran a tender on 14 quarter-dunam plots on the eastern side of the moshav, valued at NIS 2 million including VAT. From those two, the appraisers put the bare land at roughly NIS 3.2 to 3.5 million.

Finishing the house is estimated at NIS 2.2 million, depending on the specification chosen. The appraisal firm quoted by Globes puts the finished house at about NIS 6 million, and calls that a ceiling that is hard to cross in the area.

Our own calculation. NIS 4.1 million paid plus NIS 2.2 million to finish is NIS 6.3 million all in, against an estimated finished value of about NIS 6 million. The buyer is therefore roughly NIS 300,000, or about 5%, above the appraised finished value. Put differently, NIS 6.3 million over 290 built square meters is about NIS 21,700 per built square meter. Basis: the sale price and the completion estimate published by Globes, divided by the stated floor area.

Why it matters. This is the clearest single illustration of a market where building costs rose and property values did not. The appraiser’s own comment is that the price covers land plus construction with no developer profit inside it. If you are thinking about buying land and building, that is your warning: today the sums can add up to more than the finished house is worth.

Your renewal developer may not be the one who finishes your building

A growing number of urban renewal projects are changing owners partway through. Urban renewal here means pinui-binui, where old blocks are demolished and replaced, or TAMA 38, where an existing building is strengthened and enlarged.

Globes spoke to two developers doing the buying. Tomer Reifman of Yaaz says approaches from developers wanting to sell or bring in a partner have risen sharply over the past three years. Itamar Ben Shalom of Ben Shalom Yazamut says many of these projects were signed under completely different assumptions: lower interest rates, lower build costs and a stronger sales market.

The named examples are concrete. Ben Shalom bought the permit for a strengthening project at Izik Harif 28 to 30 in Jaffa, adding 12 apartments, then bought the adjoining project at Izik Harif 26, adding 14 more, so both could be built together. The company has been running a project at Ben Yehuda 194 in Tel Aviv for eight years, adding three and a half floors, and is now completing a purchase of the adjoining building at Ben Yehuda 192. Reifman describes Bloch 11 in Tel Aviv, where Yaaz was a 50/50 partner and then bought out the other side to hold 100%.

Reifman is blunt about the limits. He will not enter a project that is not economic, and he says the compensation to owners sometimes has to be adjusted. Ben Shalom argues that a strong company should also be willing to say “not yet”, and hold a permit rather than start building into bad conditions.

If you are an owner in a project that may change hands, four things are worth checking before you sign anything new:

• Does your original agreement let the developer transfer the project without your consent? Read that clause first.
• Are the promised compensation terms carried over in full, in writing, by the incoming company?
• Who provides the Sale Law guarantees and the alternative-rent guarantees now, and from what date?
• What is the new company’s actual build record, not its marketing brochure?

Why it matters. A stronger company taking over can be good news, because it makes completion more likely. But it is also the moment when terms get reopened. Treat a handover as a negotiation, not an administrative update.

Seven to fifteen years: the renewal promise nobody prices in

Tens of thousands of homes get planning approval each year through urban renewal. Far fewer get a building permit. Bizportal laid out the arithmetic on Saturday, and it is uncomfortable.

A typical pinui-binui project runs 7 to 15 years from the first residents’ meeting to the day you get keys. Construction alone averages about three years. Residents who move out live in alternative housing for an average of three to five years, and only if the developer and contractor keep to schedule.

The report opens with a Tel Aviv family who started the process 12 years ago and signed with a developer about a decade ago. They wanted an extra bedroom for their children. The children have since left home. Entry is expected in about another year.

Three forces are squeezing these projects at once. Interest rates went from near zero to high, which made project finance expensive. Build costs rose, materials rose, and a worker shortage since October 2023 stretched schedules and raised wages. And local authorities increasingly require the developer to fund roads, kindergartens, public buildings, infrastructure and maintenance funds.

The result reaches owners directly. Developers are going back to residents who already signed and asking to change terms: give up the parking space, accept a smaller new apartment, or add cash, or the project is cancelled. Owners of small apartments lose the most, because compensation models tied to original apartment size shrink their share.

There is a legal complication too. A Tel Aviv District Court ruling in the Keren Or case held that giving every owner the identical floor-area addition, regardless of their existing apartment size, harms relative equality. In that case, on a project at HaRa’ah 75 to 79 in Ramat Gan with a uniform 12 sqm addition, the court awarded a balancing payment of about NIS 141,000 to the owner of the large apartment. Payments like that raise project cost and cut developer profit.

Why it matters. If someone offers you an apartment in a renewal project “ready in five years”, the sector’s own numbers say plan for longer. Before signing, ask for the developer’s and the contractor’s financial statements, insist on Sale Law guarantees and separate guarantees covering the whole alternative-housing period, and get the timetable in writing with consequences attached.

Buying from another buyer: the guarantee gap that cost one investor hundreds of thousands

A Sale Law guarantee is a bank or insurer promise that returns your money if the developer fails. It is the single most important protection when you buy a home that is not built yet.

Globes published the story of Yahav Shpinard, who in 2020 bought an apartment in the “Yaffa” project on Tucholsky Street in Jaffa. He did not buy from the developer. He bought from another buyer who was reselling, and paid NIS 2 million, which was NIS 300,000 below the developer’s own price of NIS 2.3 million. Today he says he would be satisfied to walk away losing “only” NIS 200,000.

The trap sat inside the discount. The seller had bought in 2015 under an 80/20 deal at NIS 1.5 million, meaning he had put down only NIS 300,000 and still owed the developer NIS 1.2 million. When Shpinard bought at NIS 2 million, he stepped into the seller’s shoes for the NIS 300,000 that carried a Sale Law guarantee, and added NIS 500,000 of his own that carried no guarantee at all.

The project was a TAMA 38/1 scheme covering six buildings and 96 families, run by the late developer Roni Tzabari, whose company Tzabarim collapsed about three years ago. The Housing Ministry’s Sale Law registrar has since ruled that a person who buys on paper and resells is responsible under the Sale Law for the price gap between what they paid and what they sold for. That responsibility must be written into the agreement between the two sides. It is not automatic.

Why it matters. Resale-before-completion looks like a bargain and is one of the sharpest risks in this market right now, because many 2021 and 2022 paper buyers are trying to get out. If you are offered one, ask exactly how much of your money will be covered by a guarantee, get the gap covered in the contract, and check the developer’s financial health before you sign anything.

Shoham penthouse: NIS 5.3 million, and six months on the shelf

On Tirosh Street in the Karmim neighbourhood of Shoham, a five-room penthouse of 140 sqm, with a 40 sqm terrace, two parking spaces and a storeroom, sold for NIS 5.3 million. The building is about seven years old. The apartment had been fully renovated, and the buyers paid another NIS 50,000 for the furniture and lighting. It was marketed at NIS 5.67 million and sat for about six months, per Globes.

Our own calculation. The gap between the asking price and the sale is NIS 370,000, which is 6.5% below asking. That is wider than the 2% to 5% local decline the agent describes. On the built area alone, NIS 5.3 million over 140 sqm works out to about NIS 37,900 per square meter, terrace excluded. Basis: the marketed and final prices, and the stated floor area.

Reuven Buskila, the Anglo Saxon Shoham franchisee who represented both sides, describes a two-part local market. Deal volume has halved from the peak three to four years ago. Apartment supply is large and demand is weak. But detached-house demand is strong, from younger buyers with cash looking to use current conditions, at NIS 6.5 million to NIS 12 million, often for older houses needing work. Rents have gone up: he recently let a five-room apartment for NIS 10,500 a month. He notes Shoham is a relatively new town, so it has no urban renewal and almost no new building, because there is no land.

Why it matters. This is what a softening market looks like at street level. Well-priced, well-finished homes still sell, but only after a long wait and a real cut. If you are selling, the six-month shelf time is the number to plan around, not the headline price.

Three flats in Harish, or one house in Pardes Hanna

A separate price check published on Saturday by ice answers a question a lot of families ask: how far do you have to move before a house becomes possible?

These are recent closed sales, not asking prices.

Around that, the report sets the wider frame. In Binyamina’s Hadarim neighbourhood, cottages on small plots start near NIS 4.8 million and reach NIS 5.2 to 5.3 million with a basement or a separate unit. In Zichron Yaakov a quarter dunam averages NIS 5 to 5.5 million, though houses built in a tight cluster go for NIS 4 to 4.5 million. Go further out to Netivot and older cottages sit near NIS 3 million. The average Harish apartment is about NIS 1.5 million, and Harish is a short drive from the triangle towns.

Our own calculation. Convert those into price per built square meter and the map gets clearer. The Harish flat at NIS 1.25 million over 98 sqm is about NIS 12,800 per square meter. The Pardes Hanna house at NIS 4.885 million over 199 sqm is about NIS 24,500. Against the Rova 3 median in our lead story, NIS 62,500, one square meter in central Tel Aviv costs roughly 2.6 times a square meter of that Pardes Hanna house, and close to 5 times a square meter in Harish. Basis: each published sale price divided by its published built area.

One caution the report raises directly: people who bought apartments in Harish in 2022 have recorded a real loss on their money. Cheap does not mean safe.

Why it matters. If a garden is the goal, the honest budget for a house in the Binyamina, Pardes Hanna and Zichron triangle today is NIS 4.8 million to NIS 5.6 million, and plot sizes differ a lot between those towns for similar money. Compare per square meter and per plot size, not per headline.

Holon’s engineer on the metro, parking rules and Agrobank

Holon plans to nearly double its population by 2040, a target written into its city master plan. City engineer Osnat Elron set out how, in a podcast interview published by Nadlan Center on Sunday morning.

Three practical points came out of it.

First, transport timing. Elron says the works have “wounded” the city and that public transport does not yet answer the need. She expects real improvement in stages, first through more buses, then when the light rail Green Line enters service. Her working assumption is that by mid-2028 many residents will have shifted to public transport.

Second, a mismatch developers keep raising. New projects near future metro lines are sometimes required to build to reduced parking standards, years before the metro actually runs. Elron accepts the problem is real, and answers that planners are obliged to look forward, because the future of Gush Dan is not the private car.

Third, the old neighbourhoods. The city is now sending a planning team to work out how to make Agrobank economically viable for renewal, rather than waiting for land values to rise on their own. Elron frames the goal as more than new apartments: public space, schools and a better urban fabric. Holon’s remaining large land reserve is the ch/500 plan.

Why it matters. If you are buying in Holon, two things follow. A flat sold on “the metro is coming” may come with fewer parking spaces than you expect, years before the line opens. And Agrobank and Jesse Cohen are moving from “wait and see” to active planning, which usually shows up in prices before it shows up in cranes. Our earlier coverage of the city’s roof agreement is in Holon’s NIS 3B Deal for 8,580 New Homes.

The numbers to hold in your head this week

Four anchors, all confirmed directly at source, so you can sense-check anything a salesperson tells you.

• Bank of Israel rate: 3.5%. Cut by 0.25% on 6 July 2026. The next decision is 1 September 2026. Confirmed on the Bank of Israel site.
• Inflation: 1.6% over the past 12 months, per the Bank of Israel’s own headline figure.
• Unsold new apartments: more than 84,000, a record, as cited by TheMarker.
• June mortgages: NIS 11.05 billion, of which NIS 10.2 billion excluded refinancing.
• Official home price index: down 1.0% in a month and 2.0% over a year. We pulled this straight from the Central Bureau of Statistics price API. Note the reference month is April 2026, published on 15 July. That is the newest official reading there is.

One correction worth knowing, since you may see the number quoted differently. The Globes report on the Tel Aviv study describes that 1% fall as the May figure. The Central Bureau of Statistics data series puts the 1.0% monthly fall in April 2026. The size of the fall is right, the month label is not. The official index runs about two to three months behind, so any “latest” home price figure you are shown this week is April data.

One housekeeping note on dates, because it caught us today. A widely shared story about Kiryat Tivon’s first urban renewal plan, 1,400 homes at the Katznelson compound, was circulating with a Saturday timestamp. The article is actually from 7 June 2026. We left it out. If you see it shared this week, it is not new.

What to do next

If you are buying a resale apartment in central Tel Aviv, ask your agent for the last four closed deals per square meter on that street, and compare them with the medians above before you make an offer.

Sources

• Globes, July 26: Dr Assaf Gastfreund’s analysis of 371 second-hand Tel Aviv deals.
• TheMarker, July 26: bank credit to builders, by Michael Rochwarger.
• ice, July 26: June mortgage volume and the Finance Ministry’s reading of it.
• Globes, July 26: the Kfar Warburg shell sale.
• Globes, July 26: urban renewal projects changing hands.
• Globes, July 26: the Jaffa “Yaffa” project and the Sale Law guarantee gap.
• Globes, July 25: the Shoham penthouse sale and weekly deal sheet.
• Bizportal, July 25: urban renewal timelines and shrinking compensation.
• ice, July 25: closed house and apartment prices in Harish, Pardes Hanna, Binyamina and Zichron Yaakov.
• Nadlan Center, July 26: interview with Holon city engineer Osnat Elron.
• Bank of Israel, July 6: rate decision, 3.5%.
• Mako, May 13: Bank of Israel data on construction-project credit, NIS 49 billion to NIS 69 billion.
• Central Bureau of Statistics: home price index, April 2026 reference month, released 15 July.