The biggest move was political, not a price. On Monday the attorney general told ministers she will ask the High Court to cancel the appointment of Yehuda Eliyahu as director of the Israel Land Authority, the body that controls most of the country’s land. The reason is a conflict of interest on the panel that picked him. At the same time, planners in the north deposited a plan to rebuild a whole Carmiel neighborhood, going from about 1,430 old homes to roughly 4,460. In Haifa, the retail floor of the Sammy Ofer football stadium finally got its building permit. In Herzliya, a giant demolish-and-rebuild project shows how an unsolved sewage line can stop finished apartments from being lived in. And in the Knesset, the Treasury and the builders are fighting over a plan to push tens of thousands of unsold new apartments into long-term rental.
Three numbers we worked out from the verified figures below: the Carmiel plan puts about 3.1 times as many homes on the same ground (4,460 versus 1,430). The two sides in the rental fight are about 6 times apart on the same profit math (the Treasury says 12 percent a year, the builders say barely 2 percent). And roughly 1 in 4 of Israel’s 84,000 unsold new apartments, about 20,000, are already finished and just waiting for a buyer.
The state moves to undo its own land chief
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara notified ministers on Monday, June 22, that she can no longer defend the appointment of Yehuda Eliyahu as director of the Israel Land Authority and will recommend the High Court of Justice strike it down. That is a sharp reversal: only a week earlier the state was still defending the process.
The problem is the selection panel. One member, Prof. Idit Solberg, is married to Shai Solberg, whose firm Solberg Consulting did work for the Ministry of Construction and Housing worth about 10 million shekels in 2025 alone. The court has already issued a conditional order telling the state to explain why the choice should not be canceled, and the next hearing is set for July 1.
Why it matters: the Land Authority decides which state land goes to tender, when, and on what terms, so it sits upstream of almost every new housing project in Israel. We covered Eliyahu’s arrival and his promised policy turn when he took the job (see Yehuda Eliyahu Takes Helm of Israel Land Authority). If the court agrees with the attorney general, that direction is suddenly in doubt, and land tenders could face fresh delay while the leadership is sorted out. Buyers and developers waiting on state-land projects should treat the timetable as uncertain until after July 1.
Source: Globes, Calcalist, Ynet (June 22, 2026).
Builders and the Treasury fight over what to do with empty new flats
Two problems are colliding. Builders are sitting on about 84,000 unsold new apartments, and the rental market keeps getting more expensive, with new tenants paying about 6 percent more in the latest index. A fresh proposal tries to solve both at once.
The builders’ idea, reported Monday, is a carrot: let a developer who cannot sell turn those flats into supervised long-term rentals for five to ten years, in exchange for state help and tax breaks. The Treasury is pushing a stick from the other direction, inside the Arrangements Law. Here is the clash in plain terms:
| Question | Treasury wants | Builders say |
|---|---|---|
| Share of a subsidized project you may sell | Cut from 50% to 33% | Leave it; forcing 67% into rental kills the math |
| Minimum rental period for the tax break | Stretch from 5 years to 15 | 10 years at most; 15 ties up money with no reward |
| Yearly return on such a project | About 12%, even after the changes | Barely 2% |
That return gap is the whole argument. As our own check shows, 12 percent against 2 percent is a six-fold difference, or 10 percentage points, on the same building. The Knesset Finance Committee chair, Alex Kushnir, has asked the Treasury to show its math. Builders Association head Raoul Srugo warned against breaking something that works, and adviser Dov Tzur called locking capital for 15 years “hopeless.”
Why it matters: this is the lever that decides how many of those 84,000 flats reach renters instead of sitting empty. For the deeper background on the unsold pile and the rule changes already in motion, see Israel’s Housing Freeze Deepens and Israel Rewrites Its Rules to Get Rentals Built. If the carrot version wins, expect more brand-new buildings offered as rentals at fixed terms, which would ease pressure on tenants in high-demand cities.
Source: TheMarker and Calcalist (June 22, 2026).
Carmiel clears a plan to triple a whole neighborhood
The Northern District planning committee deposited, for public objection, a master plan to renew the Founders (HaMeyasdim) neighborhood, the oldest quarter in Carmiel. It is a big bet on renewal in the periphery, where the numbers usually do not work.
The plan covers about 239 dunams and lands on roughly 4,460 homes in total. Today the neighborhood has 1,430 older apartments. About 1,000 of them would be torn down and replaced by around 3,800 new ones, another 230 would be reinforced and expanded to 460, and 200 would stay as they are. Roughly 1,278 of the new homes are set aside as small apartments. Heights step with the hillside: towers up to 25 floors along the main spines like Nesi’ei Yisrael Boulevard, and gentler blocks up to 9 floors on inner streets. The plan adds about 40,000 square meters of shops, offices and hotels, 75,000 square meters of public buildings, and about 40 dunams of open space, while keeping the neighborhood’s distinctive patio houses and green footpaths.
Our calculation: that is about 3.1 times the homes on the same ground, a net gain near 3,030 apartments. District planner Dikla Adi Peretz stressed that the roads and transport must be built in stages to carry that load. Urban renewal authority planning chief Guri Nadler said it sets a framework to renew the city’s oldest district.
Why it matters: “deposited” means it is open for objections, not approved or under construction, so this is a multi-year horizon, not next year’s keys. Still, it signals real renewal money flowing to the Galilee, a theme we traced in Karmiel Rising. Early buyers in old Carmiel stock should read the staging rules before assuming a quick rebuild.
Source: Nadlan Center (article 14782), citing the Northern District committee (June 22, 2026).
In Herzliya, a sewage line is the thing standing between you and your keys
A large demolish-and-rebuild (pinui-binui) project by Azorim in Herzliya’s Shikun Weizmann keeps moving through planning. It would knock down 576 apartments and put up about 1,800 in their place. But one basic thing is still unsolved: hooking the complex up to the city sewage system. Because of that, developers are being told they must warn buyers and renters that the apartments may not be fit to move into on time.
This is not only a Herzliya story. Connecting big new complexes to wastewater treatment is one of the quiet blocks holding back hundreds of thousands of planned homes across Israel, and Herzliya has used waiver documents before to shift the sewage-connection risk off the city and onto developers. The Land Authority has separately accused the city of trying to scare builders away from a nearby tender for 733 homes.
A short checklist if you are buying new in an infrastructure-tight city:
- Ask in writing whether the building has an approved, funded sewage connection, not just a building permit.
- Check whether your contract makes the occupancy date conditional on infrastructure, and who pays if it slips.
- Treat a signed waiver about utilities as a red flag worth a lawyer’s eyes.
Why it matters: a permit is not the same as a home you can live in. The gap between “approved” and “occupiable” is exactly where buyers get stuck. Source: TheMarker (June 22, 2026), with context from Ynet and Calcalist.
The Sammy Ofer stadium finally gets its shopping floor
Aspen Group received a building permit to build and run about 7,500 square meters of shops, restaurants and leisure space on the ground floor of Haifa’s Sammy Ofer Stadium. The fit-out is estimated at roughly 23 million shekels, the operating concession runs 25 years, and the center is expected to open in early 2027. Announced anchor tenants include Carrefour, McDonald’s, the Wivino group and Electrical Warehouse.
A quick figure from the numbers above: about 23 million shekels across 7,500 square meters works out to roughly 3,070 shekels per square meter just to build out the retail space, before rent or stock. It is a reminder that a stadium is increasingly a year-round retail asset, not a venue used on match days only.
Why it matters: for Haifa, it turns dead stadium hours into daily footfall and adds retail supply to the bay area we tracked in Haifa Bay Real Estate. Source: Ynet, Walla, 1075.fm and Nadlan Center.
Also moving, but not its own story yet
- The Central Bureau of Statistics release from last week showed building permits, starts and completions all up against a year earlier. That feeds the supply question we already covered in Israel Approved a Record Wave of Homes. Can It Actually Build Them?
- The official unsold count stayed around 84,000, with builders trimming new launches to hold prices up. Background lives in The Truth Behind 84,000 Unsold Homes.
- The urban renewal authority is still pushing for an 18 to 20 percent developer margin in renewal plans, the policy shift we explained in Israel Hands Builders a Bigger Cut.
Reader note: figures here are traced to the named sources and, where marked “our calculation,” are simple ratios we derived from those verified numbers so you can recheck them. Nothing in this brief is investment advice.
