I step onto land that changes every minute, at a completely fantastic speed. In Israel, next to one "property" another instantly grows up. And so it seems that this world – by definition meant to be immovable – does not want to remain at rest.
FROM CARAVANS TO SKYSCRAPERS
Let me give just one example: my family arrived in Israel six years ago. In Tel Aviv there was practically not a single modern high-rise building. And now there are already two dozen skyscrapers, if not more: our "second capital" has been transformed before our eyes. And how many new cities and towns have grown up during this time? Well, real estate in Israel can by no means be called immovable.
When they say that Israel grew up on a bare, swampy and desert place, that is true. It is also true that in Palestine, a poor province of the Ottoman Empire, and later of the British crown, there were no traditions of cultural, urban construction. Both Jews and Arabs lived extremely poorly, no one thought about the beauty of buildings or the convenience of streets in cities, and rural settlements sometimes could not be distinguished from a random pile of stones. Housing in Palestine was exclusively functional. It had to protect from the coolness and rains in winter, from the scorching heat in summer – that's all.
Population of the promised land has grown by almost one and a half million
people. In total, Israel today has 6,200,000 citizens. Such population growth is a world record, although demographic Israel, as far as I know, has not been included in the Guinness Book. But the rapid growth in the number of new Israelis required the rapid development of housing and industrial construction: people, as is known, need first of all a roof over their heads and work.
In the early nineties, the country received 150,000-200,000 emigrants a year. It was helped, no argument, but the money had to turn into houses, factories, roads, workshops. This is where one had to rely only on oneself. And a new Israel appeared in recent years. The giant camps of newcomers, where people lived in trailers (as we say, in "caravans"), emptied. The whole country was in the fever of a construction boom. Demand created supply, housing prices grew no less rapidly than the houses themselves.
The fact is that before, until the last big wave of aliyah (repatriation), new settlers arrived in Israel, as a rule, with insignificant baggage. And the state provided housing for newcomers for free. Israel was poor, built extremely badly, but no one was left under the open sky.
Now the situation has radically changed. Democratic reforms gave people ownership of their apartments, the sale of real estate and the free export of money were allowed. This is where the involuntary "socialism" ended. Housing in Israel instantly became paid and very expensive. As did, however, the rental of apartments.
The dynamics are obvious. An acquaintance of mine received free housing in Holon (a satellite city of Tel Aviv) in 1975. His two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a four-story building without an elevator cost him nothing. Sixteen years later, he bought it from the state for 42 thousand dollars. In 1994, he sold it for 84 thousand "greenbacks", added another $15,000, and moved into a better apartment, with an elevator, in a more modern building. Now his new dwelling is worth at least $120,000. And this happened not only as a result of the general increase in real estate prices, but also because the surrounding area was transformed. The desert turned into a park, new streets, shopping centers, and matnasim (community centers) appeared nearby.
Another typical story. Artists Yan and Ira Lichtwanger live in a luxurious villa on the coast in Jaffa. Actually, all of Tel Aviv once clung to this old Arab city. The Lichtwangers say they bought their property in 1976 for $35,000. The house was in terrible condition. They repaired it themselves and laid out a garden on two hundred square meters of their own land. Today their villa is worth at least $2,000,000.
UNIFORMITY AND DISTINCTIVENESS
In the fifties, there was a need to provide housing for large masses of repatriates, and whole districts and even cities appeared in Israel, built up with identical "boxes" that brought melancholy and gloom. In those years, they built guided only by economic considerations. The old policy, familiar to all of us from the times of "khrushchyovkas": rather than spend money on developing a new project, it is easier to pull out a ready-made standard project from the drawer.
Later, when a tendency towards implementing individual projects arose in Israel, a "rollback" occurred – a natural reaction to standard urban development. As a result, now one can often see next to a house in the German style a building characteristic of Greece or Spain. And today in Israel they have come to the conclusion that one should strive for uniformity of the district, but at the same time ensure that the buildings are not absolutely identical.
One of Israel's leading architects, Gil Shenhav, believes that 70-80% of architectural elements should be identical, and 20-30% unique. This problem was solved in a funny and even somewhat touching way during the construction of the "Ezorei Hen" quarter in northern Tel Aviv. The buildings, erected according to the latest but standard design, were given their own names based on the names of seven plant species. The lobby of each building was decorated with a work of art, also of "plant" origin. Naturally, the gardens near the houses are completely individual.
Even if the buildings are identical, architects increasingly use different finishes for such houses. Pink Jerusalem tuff, concrete, and marble are used. And the interior of apartments in each quarter is decorated differently. Glass walls and tiles of different colors have become widely used in Israel's housing construction. Recently, a whole village of cottages with blue roofs was built.
Modern building techniques are especially noticeable in new cities. The city of Modi'in, for example, from its very inception, with every fragment, insists on the advantages of combining uniformity and distinctiveness.
The pleasure of living in such modern houses is expensive. In the mentioned Tel Aviv quarter "Ezorei Hen", a three-room apartment costs $214,000, and a four-room apartment costs $279,000.
Israel began its path to the beauty of urban planning quite recently. There are still enough dreadful, gloomy buildings in the country, built decades ago. And yet the country is becoming prettier. Modern technologies and materials are used in construction - bitumen shingles, facade panels, double-glazed windows. The architect has become a respected figure in Israel, and the landscape artist is no less honorable. Sculptors and fountain makers have also taken to the streets. There are a great many of them in Israel (apparently due to the eternal water shortage).
HOW TO BUY
In Israel, real estate is sold to everyone, including foreigners. Without any permanent residence registration, you can buy anything, but... This is where the problems begin. An apartment or a house is not vegetables at a market: such a purchase is processed through a bank. So, a buyer who is not an Israeli citizen must have a substantial account in the bank, and not just a regular one, but a savings account. That is, additional funds from a legal source must be regularly deposited into this account.
When purchasing real estate, a foreigner is not exempt from the preferential tax on this transaction, and this tax can exceed 5% of the price of a house or apartment. A foreigner is entitled to a regular loan at 6% per annum, but again provided that he has a substantial savings account in the bank.
US citizens built a whole town of villas in the Netanya area. As a rule, they stand empty for most of the year, but are vigilantly guarded. I know of no other cases of settlement construction by non-citizens of Israel, but foreigners make many "targeted" purchases in the country.
HOW TO LIVE
In Israel, you can easily tell by the quality of street cleaning and the appearance of residents which area you should buy housing in and what conditions you will live in.
But besides this, there are characteristic features when choosing a place of residence. If you tolerate heat very poorly (and in Israel there are days when going outside is tantamount to entering a steam bath or sauna), you absolutely cannot live in coastal areas with high humidity. If you buy an apartment somewhere in Bat Yam, your life will turn into hell. Only mountainous or desert regions of Israel are suitable for you. In the mountains, in the Galilee, cool breezes blow even in summer, and in the desert, for example in the city of Arad, you will at least rest at night from the exhausting heat.
But even a "heat-resistant" person should remember that an apartment with all windows facing one direction will cause you considerable suffering. In summer, the possibility of drafts is a lifesaver. True, this is significant only if you decide to do without an air conditioner, which is not cheap in Israel.
Another feature of houses in Israel should be taken into account. When buying apartments in the old housing stock, special attention should be paid to the quality of utilities. Alas, this part of construction work was treated extremely frivolously in past years. There is a high probability that you will come across an apartment where an expensive replacement of some pipes will be required immediately after purchase. Or all of them at once.
But all these are trifles, sometimes significant, but nothing more. In Israel, people try to buy or rent apartments primarily near work and live where there is developed industry with jobs. This is especially true for newcomers. A person chases a cheap apartment and buys it in a city where unemployment exceeds 20%. So he suffers, spending 2-2.5 hours a day on the road to his place of work. Israel is a small country, but traffic jams are like in big ones. And with these monstrous traffic jams, both time and distance become relative concepts.
And nevertheless, the prestige of a place remains a determining factor in pricing. Areas such as Tsaala, Afeka, and Savyon have not lost their attractiveness over the years. And in Tel Aviv, the "hottest" prices are charged for housing with a view of the Mediterranean waves.
Quite recently, one Russian businessman bought a penthouse with a sea view on Tel Aviv's HaYarkon Street for $3 million. And in Caesarea, an overseas foreigner just acquired an entire palace with an area of 2,000 square meters, with a large garden, swimming pool, and sea view for $7.5 million.
The situation on the luxury housing market is generally extremely curious. Old-timers remember that not so long ago, just a little less than 30 years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir lived in a small two-room apartment without special amenities. Today, Meir Menachem, one of the dealers in luxury housing, reports that last year alone he sold 120 houses at a price of more than a million dollars each. Moreover, 85% of the transactions were made by Israelis, 15% by foreigners.
In recent years, the swimming pool has become a symbol of luxury housing. Until quite recently, affluent Israelis would inevitably visit "country clubs." Now they prefer to have pools, saunas, jacuzzis, and gyms at home. They have also begun building pools in addition to the so-called "people's houses" for people of moderate means. Advertising promises that having a pool in a building will not affect the price of apartments, but will only affect the maintenance costs.
Surprisingly, apartments in prestigious buildings are in high demand even during the current period of stagnation, when other, cheaper ones do not find buyers.
More than half of the buyers of luxury housing got rich thanks to their work precisely in the high-technology sector. True, by September 2000 the situation changed dramatically. A quarter of the transactions were annulled by investors. And this is understandable. The security situation has worsened, and on top of that, there was a fall in shares on the NASDAQ exchange. Hundreds of knowledge-intensive companies and enterprises closed. Naturally, a normal investor will wait for better times.
However, “normal investors” not only wait but also buy land plots, because demand for them has significantly grown. Surplus money has to be put somewhere. So wealthy people are stocking up on land in advance in order to start building there over time.
To be continued.