Tel Aviv Land Is Worth 6.6x Sderot Land, State Says

Wednesday was the busiest day for Israeli state land sales in months. Twelve land tenders closed for bids at noon on August 5, covering 7,390 homes. Not one of them was in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa or Rishon LeZion. The biggest by far was Sderot, with 2,868 homes.

Hours later, the Israel Land Authority did something quieter. It finally published the rulebooks for two Tel Aviv tenders that had sat on its website for almost a year without them. Those two tenders cover 598 homes in Ramat HaChayal.

Those documents let us price the state’s own land in both places. Using the Land Authority’s own appraisals, a home’s worth of land in Ramat HaChayal is valued at about NIS 1.03 million. In Sderot it is about NIS 157,000. That is a gap of 6.6 times.

Elsewhere: a planning committee in Ramat Gan approved 922 homes and, for the first time in the Tel Aviv area, made the developer fund long term tower upkeep. A Haifa committee overruled its own planner to move 953 homes forward in Kiryat Motzkin. Beit Shemesh sold downtown land for a mall and offices. And an Israeli firm told investors that an Ohio office block it bought for 17 million dollars sold for 2 million.

We also picked up one story from the day before that nobody on this site has covered. Israel reserved land for 40 sewage treatment plants, because nowhere to put the sewage is one of the main reasons housing plans stall.

Tel Aviv’s Ha’Arad tenders finally got their rulebooks, 356 days late

On August 5, between 1:19pm and 1:31pm, the Israel Land Authority uploaded the tender booklets for two Tel Aviv land tenders. A tender booklet is the rulebook. It holds the plot maps, the minimum price, the deposit and the deadlines. Without it, nobody can actually bid.

Both tenders were first published on August 14, 2025. So the booklets arrived 356 days later.

The two tenders cover 598 homes in the Ha’Arad compound, in the Ramat HaChayal business area of north Tel Aviv. Tender 246/2025 covers 342 homes. Tender 247/2025 covers 256 homes. The wider plan runs across 63 dunam and allows towers of up to 40 floors, plus roughly 200,000 square metres of offices and shops. Tel Aviv’s local planning committee approved it in early December 2024, as Tel Aviv Online reported at the time.

The two tenders were then treated very differently on the same afternoon. Tender 247/2025 was given a fresh start. Its opening date was reset to today, August 6, and its deadline moved from August 24 to October 12. That is 67 days to bid. Tender 246/2025 kept its August 24 deadline. That leaves 19 days from the moment its rulebook appeared. As of this morning the Land Authority’s own record for 246/2025 still says the tender is not ready to accept an online bid.

The booklet for 247/2025 also shows five separate postponement notices on file, dated November 19 2025, February 9 2026, May 18 2026, June 7 2026 and August 5 2026.

The numbers the booklet revealed. For tender 247/2025 the Land Authority values the land at NIS 264.4 million across two plots, and asks bidders for a bank guarantee of NIS 26.44 million, exactly 10 percent. State development work on the two plots is costed at NIS 7,702,790.

Our own figure. Divide the appraisal by the homes and the land alone is valued at NIS 1,032,813 per home. Add the development cost and it reaches about NIS 1,062,900 per home. That is the cost of the dirt before a single floor is poured. Basis: NIS 264,400,000 plus NIS 7,702,790, divided by 256 homes, all four numbers taken from the tender record.

Source: the Israel Land Authority tender system, records 246/2025 and 247/2025, read on August 6, plus the tender booklet for 247/2025 published August 5.

Why it matters: if you are waiting for new homes in north Tel Aviv, this is the first hard evidence of when they might actually be sold. It also sets a floor. When land is valued at over a million shekels per home, no developer will sell those apartments cheaply.

Twelve tenders closed in one day, and none were in a big city

At noon on Wednesday August 5, twelve state land tenders closed for bids. Together they cover 7,390 homes. Globes reported the same day that none of the twelve sat in any of the four largest cities, or in the heart of the high demand areas.

We checked that against the Land Authority’s own tender file. It matches. Here is where they were.

Eleven of the twelve have already moved to the tender committee stage. That is the step where officials review the bids. Winners have not been announced, so nobody yet knows how many drew real offers.

Our own figure. We counted every day in the last 150 days on which at least one housing land tender closed. There were 23 such days. They averaged 3.5 tenders and 972 homes each. August 5 carried 7,390 homes. That is 7.6 times the average closing day, and the largest single closing day in that whole stretch, on both tender count and home count. Basis: the closing date field on every tender with at least one home, from the full Land Authority file pulled on August 6.

Our own figure, and the sharper one. The same records show what the state thinks its land is worth, and what it costs the state to prepare it. The pattern is stark.

Read the last column slowly. In Ofakim the state spends almost as much preparing a plot as the plot is worth. In Tel Aviv the land is worth about 34 times what it costs to prepare. Basis: the appraisal and development cost fields on each tender record, divided by that tender’s home count. These are the state’s own appraisals, not sale prices. The bids have not been opened.

For how this land got to market in the first place, see the site’s earlier reports on the southern land push and the delays that followed.

Why it matters: the state is selling land where land is cheap and preparing it at close to its full value. That is why discounted homes keep appearing in the Negev and the Galilee, and almost never in Gush Dan. If you want a new home at a state assisted price, the map above is where to look.

The quiet reason plans stall: Israel just reserved land for 40 sewage plants

A date note first. This decision was reported on August 4, one day before this brief’s window opens. We are including it because it is a significant housing story, no page on this site has ever covered it, and yesterday’s brief did not carry it. We are flagging the date rather than presenting it as fresh.

The National Planning Council approved a new national master plan, TAMA 1/29, and sent it to the district committees for comments. The plan reserves land for sewage treatment plants. That sounds like plumbing. It is actually a housing story.

The Planning Administration says a shortage of land for sewage treatment is one of the central barriers stopping residential plans from moving forward in Israel today. If there is nowhere to treat a new neighbourhood’s sewage, the neighbourhood does not get approved. Reserving the land now is meant to clear that blockage before it stops the next wave of building.

The numbers in the plan, which was prepared by the Planning Administration together with the Water Authority:

• Land is reserved for 40 treatment plants, which are expected to handle about 92 percent of Israel’s forecast sewage in 2050.
• Israel’s sewage volume is forecast to grow from about 720 million cubic metres a year in 2024 to about 1.3 billion cubic metres in 2050.
• Israel runs more than 200 treatment plants today. 18 are due to close by 2030 and 4 more by 2050.
• About 65 plants get upgraded or expanded: 52 by 2030, 7 between 2031 and 2040, and 6 between 2041 and 2055.
• The policy is to enlarge big regional plants rather than build new small ones.

Yael Solomon, who chairs the National Council, called the plan “a long term answer to one of the most significant development barriers in the State of Israel, the absence of land for treatment plants.” Rafi Elmaliah, head of the Planning Administration, and Yehezkel Lifshitz, head of the Water Authority, were also quoted.

Our own figure. Those forecasts mean Israel expects to produce about 81 percent more sewage in 2050 than it did in 2024. Basis: 1.3 billion divided by 720 million. The two outlets also agree on the closures from opposite directions: TheMarker headlined 22 plants closing, and Bizzness listed 18 by 2030 plus 4 more by 2050. Those add to the same 22.

This is a deposit stage decision, so district committees comment next. It is not final.

Why it matters: when a project you are watching sits “in planning” for years with no visible reason, infrastructure capacity is often the reason. This is the state admitting that in writing and trying to fix it. It will not change any price this year, but it is one of the few things that decides whether the 2030s supply actually gets built.

Ramat Gan bought a maintenance fund with 20 apartments

The Tel Aviv District Planning Committee approved two urban renewal plans in Ramat Gan on August 5. Together they replace 245 old apartments with 922 new ones.

The interesting part is not the towers. It is a condition attached to one of them. In the Abba Hillel, Rashi and Arniya compound, the committee required a long term maintenance fund. This is money set aside now to keep the building’s systems working for decades. It is the first time this has been required in a Gush Dan clearance and rebuild project.

The developer did not do this for free. The fund was granted in exchange for extra building rights: two more floors and 20 more apartments than the original plan allowed.

Erez Ben Eliezer, the Tel Aviv district planner, said the mechanism “ensures that the complex infrastructure and systems of the towers will be maintained at the highest level even in decades to come.” He was quoted by Magdilim, which named Africa Israel Urban Renewal and Av-Gad as the developers.

The two plans in detail, per News 08:

• Abba Hillel, Rashi and Arniya: 14 old three floor buildings holding 161 apartments come down. Two towers of 48 floors go up, holding 522 apartments.
• Nachalat Ganim: about 7 dunam. 84 old apartments become 400 new ones, in three towers of 38, 38 and 20 floors.

Across both plans, 56 homes are set aside as micro apartments of up to 45 square metres and 116 as small apartments of up to 75 square metres.

Our own figures. The two plans together multiply the homes on site by 3.76. The maintenance fund cost the public 20 apartments out of the 522 in that compound, which is 3.8 percent of the tower’s homes. And Nachalat Ganim packs 400 homes onto about 7 dunam, roughly 57 homes per dunam. Basis: 922 divided by 245; 20 divided by 522; 400 divided by 7, using the unit and area counts above.

Why it matters: the running cost of a 48 floor tower is the question nobody answers before you sign. Lifts, pumps, and pressure systems are expensive, and the bill lands on the residents committee years later. A funded pot changes that maths. If you are buying into a tall renewal project anywhere in Israel, ask whether your project has one, because almost none do.

A Haifa committee overruled its own planner in Kiryat Motzkin

On August 5 the Haifa District Planning Committee voted to deposit an urban renewal plan for the Hashmonaim compound in Kiryat Motzkin. Depositing a plan is a mid stage step. It opens the plan to public objections. It is not final approval, and building permits are still some way off.

What stands out is who objected. The local Kiryot committee had discussed the plan about eight months earlier and declined to recommend it, ordering corrections. The district planner, Ronen Segal, wrote that the plan did not match the Planning Administration’s guidelines on apartment mix and needed further planning work, suggesting alternative building layouts be examined.

The committee deposited it anyway, and enlarged it. The original plan sought 900 apartments in towers of up to 40 floors. What passed allows 953 apartments in towers of up to 41 floors. Seven residential buildings of four to eight floors, holding 192 apartments today, would be demolished.

After the vote Segal said it was “an important plan for the city,” and noted it provides public land including a school. Reported by Magdilim.

Why it matters: if you own one of those 192 apartments, your building now has a plan attached to it, and the objection window is the moment your voice counts most. If you are buying nearby, note that this plan grew after professional staff asked for it to shrink. That is worth knowing before you price in the towers.

Beit Shemesh sold its downtown to a mall and offices

The Israel Land Authority announced on August 5 that it had completed two commercial land tenders in Beit Shemesh. Both closed for bids on August 3.

The larger one covered the city’s main business district. Six bids came in. Two plots were sold, one for a shopping mall and one for offices, for about NIS 90 million. The Land Authority’s own announcement on August 5 put that figure at NIS 90 million and described it as Jerusalem region tender results.

The second tender covered the western employment zone. It drew 19 bids. Six plots were sold, two for industry and four for employment use, for about NIS 62 million. Together that is about NIS 152 million across eight plots, as News 08 reported.

One discrepancy, stated plainly. Globes, in its weekly round up the same day, wrote that the Land Authority marketed seven plots in Beit Shemesh for about NIS 325 million. We could not reconcile that with the NIS 90 million in the Land Authority’s own announcement or the eight plot breakdown above. We are reporting the official figure and flagging the gap rather than picking one.

Our own figure. The two downtown plots averaged about NIS 45 million each. The six western employment plots averaged about NIS 10.3 million each. Downtown land in Beit Shemesh therefore sold for roughly 4.4 times the price per plot of land on the city’s western edge. Basis: NIS 90 million divided by 2, and NIS 62 million divided by 6, using the plot counts above.

Why it matters: Beit Shemesh has added homes far faster than it has added shops and jobs. Residents drive out of the city to work and to shop. A funded mall and an office block downtown, plus six industrial and employment plots, is the first real answer to that. For anyone weighing a move to Beit Shemesh, jobs and retail inside the city are the missing piece, and eight buyers just paid for it.

An Ohio office block bought at 17 million dollars sold for 2 million

Read this one with a caution attached. Both reports below come from the same publisher, Calcalist and its English edition CTech, so it does not meet our usual two source test. We have labelled every number as theirs.

Realco Investments, an Israeli firm that raises money from Israelis to buy American property, told its investors that an Ohio office building called Eastpoint has been sold for 2 million dollars. The firm bought it about five years ago for 17 million dollars. That is a fall of about 88 percent.

According to CTech, no other bidder turned up, so the bank that lent against the building took it. Forty two investors had put in close to 7 million dollars of their own money. The remaining 10 million or so was the bank’s loan. CTech reports that assets with confirmed losses now total around 30 million dollars, and that investors in several of the firm’s projects have got back only 20 to 30 percent of what they put in. It also notes that in 2022 the Israel Securities Authority sanctioned the firm for offering investments to more non qualified investors than the law allows.

Why it matters: a lot of Israelis and Anglo olim hold small stakes in American property deals sold at Israeli kitchen tables. This is what the downside looks like when the loan sits ahead of you. If you hold a stake like this, the questions to ask are simple: how much debt is on the asset, who ranks ahead of me, and what happens if nobody bids.

The state is planting 6,000 dunam in the Negev to hold onto its land

The Israel Land Authority announced on August 5 that wide planting works have begun in the Wadi Anim area of the Negev. The works cover about 6,000 dunam, which the Authority described as roughly twice the area of the city of Givatayim. They are run by the Authority’s land preservation division, carried out through KKL, and secured by the Israeli police.

The Authority says the purpose is to prevent land invasions, unauthorised cultivation and illegal building on state land, and that planting has been used this way for more than three decades. Reported by News 08 on August 5.

These operations are contested. Legal groups and Negev Bedouin residents have challenged similar planting in the past, and past rounds have drawn protests. We are reporting what the state announced and noting the dispute exists, without judging it.

Why it matters: state land only becomes housing after the state can prove it controls it. Most of Israel’s new tender land is in the Negev, as the tender table above shows. Enforcement work like this sits upstream of every southern tender you will read about later.

For the site’s editors: three updates, no new pages

These stories are already owned by existing pages. Update the line, do not add a page.

• Post 73418, Israel’s New Housing Market: Why Developers Are Offering Incentives Now. Add: Aura opened its full available inventory in Hadera, Ramat HaSharon, Ramat Gan, Kiryat Ono and Ofakim at double digit discounts on August 5, after selling only 291 apartments in the first half of 2026 against a 1,200 unit annual target. Reported by Globes and Calcalist, August 5.
• Post 84393, Tel Aviv’s Toxic Plots Now Have Builder Names. Add: a buyer at the Sde Dov project filed suit on August 3 seeking to cancel the purchase and recover about NIS 500,000, citing PFAS contamination. Reported by CTech, August 5.
• Post 84584, 5,300 Homes Vanished From Israel’s Land Tenders in July. Add: five more tenders were pulled back from bidding on August 5, with opening dates pushed by up to 105 days. They are small, together covering 31 homes plus one non residential site.

Checked today and not shipped

• Three real estate bills said to have passed third reading on August 5. Killed. The Knesset record stamps them August 5, but that is a batch record update: three bills were touched within 91 seconds. Their actual publication dates are July 21 and July 29, and the only plenum sitting between July 25 and August 7 was on July 28. No vote happened on August 5.
• The Appel and Kleiner asset concealment probe. Already covered in this desk’s August 4 brief, which reported the arrests. The August 5 wave of coverage added the names and a denial, so it is a refresh of a story we already told, not a new one.
• “Beersheba tender for 504 homes failed with zero bids.” Not shipped. That tender, 79/2026 in the Rakafot neighbourhood, closed on July 6, a month outside this window, and the Land Authority record does not show a failure. Single outlet, event out of window.
• Gilo, 2,300 homes. Out of window. The approval was on July 28. Only the follow up articles are from August 5.
• Bank of Israel rate cut “on August 5”. False. A web search summary asserted it twice. There was no decision; the next one is scheduled for August 31. The last cut was July 6.
• Omer Engineering executives on foreign workers raising productivity 30 percent. Dropped as company comment, not a measured figure, from a firm that has just listed.
• Danoki investor lawsuit, NIS 4.5 million. Out of scope: tourism ventures in Israel and Greece, not Israeli housing.
• Avisror’s trading debut and the G City broker fee. Both already covered in recent briefs.
• Acre, Afula, Yehud, Petah Tikva and Yavne renewal approvals. Real but routine, and the site has shipped renewal approval sections on each of the last three days. Held to avoid repeating the shape.
• Anshei Ha’ir founders buying out Rothstein’s stake at a NIS 240 million valuation. Verified across three outlets, but it is a shareholder change with no effect on a buyer or renter today. Logged, not written.
• 43 buyers suing a contractor over late delivery in Nazareth, NIS 1.95 million. Only one outlet carried it. Holding until a second source confirms.
• Haifa formalising tenant representative committees in urban renewal. Genuinely useful for owners in renewal buildings, but single outlet. Worth chasing tomorrow.
• Management companies picked for the Shimon Peres Medical Center in Beer Sheva. Two outlets, but it is a construction contract award, not a property story.
• Two News1 items and five Eilat items on yomyom.net. Date traps. The News1 pages print May 7, and the Eilat pages carry a planning approval from May 10. Both were relayed as if fresh.
• Two Facebook posts relayed by the aggregator, including a claim of a 20 percent price fall. The source is a protest page, not data, and the posts sit behind a login. Not usable.

Sources

• Israel Land Authority tender system, full tender file and individual records, read August 6, 2026.
• Israel Land Authority announcements of August 5, 2026, on the Beit Shemesh tender results and the Wadi Anim planting works, published on gov.il.
• Globes, August 5 on the twelve closing tenders.
• Globes, August 5 weekly round up.
• Magdilim, August 5 on the Ramat Gan maintenance fund.
• Magdilim, August 5 on the Kiryat Motzkin deposit decision.
• News 08, August 5 on the Ramat Gan plans.
• News 08, August 5 on the Beit Shemesh tenders.
• News 08, August 5 on the Negev planting works.
• CTech, August 5 on Realco and the Ohio sale.
• Tel Aviv Online on the Ha’Arad plan’s approval and size.
• TheMarker, August 4 and Bizzness, August 5 on national master plan TAMA 1/29 and the sewage treatment land reserve.
• Knesset OData legislative records, checked August 6, 2026, for bill status and plenum sittings.