Tuesday was a supply day. The government and local committees pushed a long list of housing projects forward at once, while the official price feeds stayed quiet. The single biggest signed event was in Kfar Yona, a town north of Netanya that just agreed to roughly double in size. Two planning stories from Herzliya and Jerusalem, a billion shekel loan plan for homes near Gaza, and two smaller renewal projects all moved the same day. Away from concrete, lawmakers settled a decades old land fight in Tel Aviv’s Kfar Shalem, and the Israel Land Authority confirmed that a new, faster system for arguing over the state’s land prices starts July 1.
Add the housing numbers up and the scale is clear. Our tally (check it): across six separate tracks announced today, about 24,600 homes moved a step forward. That is Kfar Yona (about 10,400), the full Herzliya beach plan (about 12,500), the Gaza border plan (about 1,000), the Jerusalem rental project (about 260), Pardes Hanna (about 120) and the Jerusalem entrance towers (about 300). One honest caveat: these sit at very different stages, from a signed agreement to a first draft plan to a loan tender result, so this is a measure of momentum, not of keys handed over. None of it changes the basic split we keep describing, where building races ahead while buyers stay on the sidelines, the pattern in why the market is splitting, not crashing.
Kfar Yona just agreed to double itself
The headline deal is a roof agreement (in Hebrew, heskem gag) signed between the state and the Kfar Yona municipality. A roof agreement is the contract where the government funds the roads, water, schools and parks that a big new neighborhood needs, so building can actually happen. This one covers about 10,400 new homes and about 2 billion shekels of investment, including roughly 463 million shekels for infrastructure, about 180 million shekels for public buildings, and a new bypass road. Housing Minister Haim Katz signed off on it.
What makes this one unusual is the land underneath. For the first time, a roof agreement folds private land into the same deal as state land, instead of treating the two separately. Here is the split:
| Land type | Homes planned |
|---|---|
| State land | 6,131 |
| Private land | 4,255 |
| Total | 10,386 |
Our math (check it): private land carries 4,255 of the 10,386 homes, which is about 41 percent (4,255 divided by 10,386). That is the whole point of the new model, since the state usually only builds on its own land and lets privately owned plots lag behind. Split the money across the homes and the public investment works out to roughly 193,000 shekels per planned home (2 billion divided by 10,386), the cost of wiring a town for double the people.
Why it matters: for a buyer or investor watching the Sharon corridor, Kfar Yona is about to change character, and the private land twist is a template the state may copy elsewhere to unlock plots that have sat idle. This is the supply pipeline we described in Israel’s record wave of approved homes turning into a signed, funded commitment in one specific place.
A decades long fight in Kfar Shalem finally gets a payout plan
In south Tel Aviv, the Knesset’s Interior Committee approved, in a first reading, a bill that sets up a compensation and relocation system for residents of Kfar Shalem. This neighborhood has been one of the country’s longest running land disputes, with families living for generations on state land they never formally owned, facing eviction whenever the land was marketed to developers.
The new mechanism pays residents out of the revenue the state earns from marketing that same land, and it includes help with rent while any rebuild happens. Eligibility is tied to long standing residency, with a cutoff reported around 1987. The committee gave the government six months to write the detailed regulations. This is a first reading, so it is the start of the legislative road, not the end, but it is the first time the framework has a funding source attached.
Why it matters: beyond Kfar Shalem itself, this sets a pattern for how Israel can clear and rebuild old, legally tangled neighborhoods by paying the sitting residents from the land’s own future value. If you follow urban renewal, watch whether this funding from land sales model spreads to other disputed compounds.
New rules for arguing with the state over land prices, live July 1
Quietly, one of the more useful changes for anyone who buys or leases land from the state takes effect tomorrow. When the Israel Land Authority sets a price for a plot, the other side can dispute that valuation. Until now those appeals were slow and ran through the Authority itself. From July 1, the Israel Land Authority confirms a reformed system that the Israel Land Council approved at the end of December 2025. It does three things: it sorts disputes by size, it moves the whole process to a new digital filing system run through the Justice Ministry’s land valuation department rather than the Authority, and it sets target deadlines.
| Size of the disputed deal | Where it is heard now |
|---|---|
| Under about 2 million shekels | A faster single track (one appraiser first) |
| About 2 to 10 million shekels | A regional appeals committee |
| Over about 10 million shekels | Straight to a national appeals committee |
The stated goal is a ruling in roughly 4 to 9 months, instead of the long waits people have faced. The change lands while the Authority itself is under a leadership cloud, the subject of the fight over its new chief.
Why it matters: if you are bidding in a state land tender, or you already hold a lease and think the Authority overpriced your plot, your odds of a faster, cleaner appeal just went up. The smaller your deal, the bigger the speed gain.
Herzliya’s Blue Coast moves: the first 4,000 of a 12,500 home plan
Herzliya’s local planning committee published the first detailed draft for the northern section of Hof HaTchelet, the Blue Coast, one of the most valuable undeveloped stretches of land on the central coast. The full plan, known by its code Hr/2200/a in southwest Herzliya, is huge: about 12,500 homes plus around 512,000 square meters of offices and commerce, built out over roughly two decades across three sections. The draft published today covers the first section, about 4,000 homes, and it sets the rules for how building rights get allocated to the many owners of the land.
The mechanism here is technical but important. Owners who band together voluntarily are guaranteed rights on their own plots, under the appraisal rules that govern how land is pooled and redivided. In plain terms, the city is trying to turn a patchwork of private owners into one orderly buildable neighborhood without forcing anyone out.
Why it matters: this is early stage, a draft not a permit, so no one is moving in soon. But it converts a long stalled, high value coastal site into an active plan, and it signals that even prime central land is being pushed into the supply machine.
A billion shekels lined up to build 1,000 homes near Gaza
The Jewish Agency ran a tender to find lenders who would finance new housing in the Gaza border communities, the area hit hardest on October 7, 2023. Today the winners were named: First International Bank and Altshuler Shaham. They will provide up to about 1 billion shekels in state backed credit to build roughly 1,000 homes across those communities, with construction handled through the Agency’s housing arm.
The structure is the interesting part. Because the loans carry both a state guarantee and a Jewish Agency guarantee, the communities themselves only need to put up a small slice of the cost up front as bridge funding. The lenders competed by offering the lowest interest margin above the prime rate. This sits on top of direct budget money the government had already committed to the same rebuilding push.
Why it matters: this is reconstruction finance, not market speculation. For the border region it is a concrete signal that homes will get built, and it shows the state using guarantees, rather than only cash, to pull private banks and investment houses into rebuilding.
Jerusalem picks a builder for 260 cut price rentals downtown
The Jerusalem municipality, through its Eden development company, chose the Shapir company to plan, build and run a long term rental project in the very center of the city. The deal runs as a build operate transfer for 25 years, meaning Shapir builds and manages the apartments, then hands them back. Two sites are involved:
- The Beit Ha’am compound: a new 9 story building with about 120 rental apartments, shops on the ground floor, and the rebuilt Vertigo and Kolben dance studios that sit there today.
- The Triangle (HaMeshulash) lot: another 9 story building with about 140 rental apartments, around 500 square meters of shops, about 300 square meters of cultural space, and two kindergartens.
The rents are set about 20 percent below the market, and 15 percent of the apartments are reserved for Jerusalem residents under the discounted housing rules. This is the rental side of policy, not the for sale lottery, and it follows the rule changes we covered in how Israel is rewriting the rules to get rentals built.
Why it matters: 260 below market, long term rentals in central Jerusalem is small in number but rare in type. For renters priced out of the center, projects like this are the only new supply aimed straight at them.
A bill to make owners of empty buildings finally pay
The Knesset Finance Committee took up a bill on June 29 that targets a quirk left over from British Mandate era law. Today, an owner whose building is certified unfit for use pays no municipal tax (arnona) for three years, then a minimum rate for five years, and after that a permanent full exemption. The result is that some owners simply let valuable buildings rot, tax free, for decades. The bill would cut that to a two year full exemption, then full tax based on the building’s normal use, rising to the maximum rate after ten years.
For the first time, the committee saw the numbers. Nationwide there are around 20,000 abandoned buildings, and the exemptions on them cost local authorities roughly 190 million shekels a year. Haifa is the worst hit, with 564 derelict buildings costing the city about 33.4 million shekels a year, and its old central bus station building alone accounting for about 5.7 million of that. The push is led by Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, who set up a city unit to revive abandoned buildings.
Our math (check it): spread nationally, that 190 million shekels across about 20,000 buildings is roughly 9,500 shekels a year of forgiven tax per building (190 million divided by 20,000). Haifa’s buildings cost far more, about 59,000 shekels each per year (33.4 million divided by 564), which tells you Haifa’s derelict stock skews toward big commercial buildings, not small flats.
Why it matters: this is a bill in committee, not a law yet, but if it passes it makes sitting on an empty building expensive, which could push neglected city center properties back onto the market or into renewal.
A quiet boardroom fight over an urban renewal builder
In corporate news, the founders of the urban renewal firm Anshei HaIr moved to keep control of their company. A month ago, Gefen Megurim, controlled by developer Tzachi Abu, offered to buy the roughly 41 percent stake held by Rothstein, valuing the firm at about 240 million shekels. The founders have now exercised their right of first refusal to buy that stake themselves and block the outside bid, arguing the price undervalued the company.
Why it matters: urban renewal is consolidating, with bigger players circling smaller specialists. Who owns these firms shapes which neighborhoods actually get rebuilt, so control fights like this are worth watching even when the numbers are modest.
Two more local projects clear a real hurdle
Two smaller items show renewal reaching beyond the big cities. In Pardes Hanna, the town’s first ever demolish and rebuild project crossed from paper to action: the developer Grupit sent formal eviction notices to residents of an aging complex on Derech LaMerhav, clearing the way to knock down 28 existing apartments and build about 120 new ones in two towers. It comes more than a decade after the owners first organized.
And at the entrance to Jerusalem, a full building permit was issued for the Ir HaOlam (World City) project on the site of the historic flour mill in Givat Shaul. The plan stacks about 300 homes, some for long term rent, on top of tens of thousands of square meters of offices and commerce, in towers rising to about 31 floors.
Why it matters: the first renewal project in a town like Pardes Hanna sets the local precedent that makes the next ones easier, and a permit (not just a plan) at the Jerusalem gateway means cranes, not committees, come next.
One number worth updating
We are not writing this one up again, because we have already covered the Lod discounted housing flippers, but the figure moved enough to flag. The finance ministry’s own data now shows that about 43 percent of the Lod lottery winners resold their cheap apartments, up from just 12 percent in an earlier reading from February 2024, with a median resale or repurchase price near 2.9 million shekels against a free market median around 2.2 million. The short version: the share of subsidized winners cashing out has more than tripled in about a year and a half. The full story sits in our look at the discounted housing affordability fight.
Dates to watch
The official feeds were nearly silent on housing today. The Bank of Israel did publish two routine items, a quarterly look at the public’s financial assets and a note that the governor returned from an international central banking conference, but neither touched prices or mortgages. The interest rate stays at 3.75 percent, and the next decision is Monday, July 6, at 16:00 (see what the last cut meant for buyers). The statistics bureau’s next national house price index is due around July 15. And the eleventh discounted housing lottery, whose registration closed June 22 with about 115,000 households chasing 7,922 homes, has still not held its draw, which was expected within days of closing, so it could land any day now.
Sources
- Kfar Yona roof agreement, about 10,400 homes (6,131 on state land, 4,255 on private), about 2 billion shekels, first to combine private land, Minister Haim Katz: Bizportal and Nadlan Center, June 29, 2026.
- Kfar Shalem compensation and relocation bill, first reading in the Knesset Interior Committee, funded from land marketing revenue: Ynet, TheMarker and Bizportal, June 29, 2026.
- Israel Land Authority valuation appeals reform effective July 1, 2026, tiered by deal size, filed through the Justice Ministry, target 4 to 9 months, approved by the Israel Land Council on December 31, 2025: Bizportal, JDN, and Israel Land Authority.
- Herzliya Hof HaTchelet (Blue Coast) first section draft, about 4,000 homes within a full plan of about 12,500 homes plus about 512,000 square meters of employment (plan Hr/2200/a): Ynet, Calcalist and Nadlan Center, June 29, 2026.
- First International Bank and Altshuler Shaham win the Jewish Agency tender to finance up to about 1 billion shekels for roughly 1,000 homes in the Gaza border communities: TheMarker and Nadlan Center, tender published February 2026, winners reported June 29, 2026.
- Jerusalem long term rental project, about 260 discounted apartments at the Beit Ha’am and Triangle sites, Shapir chosen by the municipality and Eden, 25 year build operate transfer, rents about 20 percent below market: Mako N12 and Kipa, June 29, 2026.
- Finance Committee bill to cut the arnona exemption on derelict buildings, about 20,000 abandoned buildings nationally costing roughly 190 million shekels a year, Haifa 564 buildings and 33.4 million shekels a year: Calcalist and Davar, June 29, 2026.
- Anshei HaIr founders exercise right of first refusal to block Gefen Megurim (Tzachi Abu) from buying Rothstein’s roughly 41 percent stake at a 240 million shekel valuation: Globes and Nadlan Center, June 29, 2026.
- Pardes Hanna first pinui binui, eviction notices for 28 apartments to be replaced by about 120 homes in two towers, developer Grupit: Nadlan Center and Magdilim, June 29, 2026.
- Ir HaOlam (World City) full building permit at the Jerusalem entrance, Givat Shaul flour mill site, about 300 homes plus offices and commerce in towers to about 31 floors: Nadlan Center and Ynet, June 29, 2026.
- Lod discounted housing resale data, about 43 percent of winners resold (up from 12 percent in February 2024): Maariv, Globes and Calcalist, June 29, 2026.
- Policy rate 3.75 percent and next decision July 6, 2026; quarterly financial assets release: Bank of Israel. Next house price index about July 15: Central Bureau of Statistics. Discounted housing lottery number eleven, registration closed June 22 with about 115,000 households for 7,922 homes: Ministry of Construction and Housing.
