Pardes Hanna-Karkur is one of those localities that found itself in a wave of unreasonable increases in rental prices due to the demand for housing in an area that is still considered rural, but it is also relatively easy to get to the center of the country. Gil Shachar, a native of the colony who himself rents an apartment in it, decided it was time to take a stand and stop standing aside, just as he did two years ago in the days of the Corona when prices began to lift their heads.
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Gil Shachar, one of the leaders of the protest in Pardes Hanna Karkur
(Photo: Sharon Tzur)
In those days, he says, he formed a group called the “Housing Warriors” that began to gain momentum. He said at the time he felt they had managed for some time to moderate prices. He later abandoned the issue for a while, but now sees that the situation is much worse. In response, Shahar wrote the following post, which in a few hours drew about 200 comments along with hundreds of likes. “Each tenant will write down how much he pays for his apartment. How many rooms there are in it, land / housing unit / garden apartment and floors, as many details as possible. That way people looking for apartments can get perspective. Because rental prices have gone crazy again like two years ago. Go for it! I’m here to follow. “
As mentioned, the reactions were not long in coming. Tenants began to raise the rental prices of their home or apartment, accompanied by recommendations from residents and other tenants regarding a recommended price versus an exorbitant price. Along with the results, there were various examples of strange but expensive rental offers, such as a trailer that is rented in Karkur for NIS 3,500 a month. In one of the responses, a resident of the place says that “I lived in Pardes Hanna until a year ago and paid 5,200 for a house, 6 rooms. The tenants who replaced me pay 6,700 (!!) inconceivable.” Another resident writes: “A 5-room apartment, a two-family apartment in the White Colony (Neve Pardesim), pays 5,700. The landlord raised it to NIS 8,500. A family from the Krayot signed the delusional sum with him.” However, alongside these there are also sane prices, most of them so it seems to have originated in older contracts.
Revealing the rental price of any home and area is one of the best kept secrets of apartment owners and realtors who tend to point out to tenants that the price they are paying is low for the area. Therefore, one of the purposes of the protest is to land the realtors who are allegedly the ones responsible for a significant portion of the increases by contacting the property owners, and making offers to bring in tenants at higher prices.
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Apartment for Rent
(Shaul Golan)
In the second stage, it is a matter of producing a rental price list by neighborhoods and houses, a not simple move in an area of detached houses where each house is different from our residence. However, such a price list, even if inaccurate in some cases, will allow potential tenants to get reference points and understand whether they are paying a reasonable price for their apartment.
Shahar says that he intends to act on the issue similar to his activity about two years ago when he wanted to live in Pardes Hanna again after studying in Be’er Sheva. “At first we would respond to every post, we posted cheaper price posts in response to expensive price posts, and I even got threats from one of the local brokers claiming I was hurting her livelihood. When I looked at the situation now, I saw that it was not a reasonable price increase. “It doesn’t make sense. For example, half a year and a year ago I saw that they advertised a house for NIS 5,200 and today they are asking for the same property for NIS 8,500.”
If in the past Shahar created a rental price list and called on tenants not to contact the realtors because they are the core of the problem, he claims, today he is not there yet, but according to the response from the groups, he estimates that it will come soon. “At the end of the day the damage is to the young couples who are trying to save for their own home and paying higher rents than the mortgage they would have repaid if they had bought a house. The problem is that current rental prices do not allow for home savings. “Two years ago the pace was slower and I think now it will happen much faster.”
Shahar believes that the protest should not remain on the screens. “A protest like in 2011 when you go out on the streets must come. The prices of apartments have risen unreasonably and the salary has not risen accordingly. A young couple with a child like me and my wife can not save a house. An average salary of 20,000 shekels is no longer enough. We are between a rock and a hard place. “Between high rents and the need to save to take out a mortgage. The apartment owners have not raised the same amount, the amounts they are asking for are pigs and that is a cynical exploitation of the situation.”
Sharon Ohana, director of the “Pardes Hanna-Karkur is My Home” group where the post came up, says that he intends to take an active part in the protest. “This is the hottest discourse right now in Pardes Hanna and probably in other places in the country. In the last 15 years, many tenants from the center of the country have come here, many young people from Tel Aviv who were surprised to find reasonable and sane rents, but in the last year they have doubled. Shelly paid NIS 4,500 and is leaving because they are demanding NIS 8,000. There is a lot of injustice in this market even in the small print of the contracts. Landlords are not willing to fix anything, everything is about the tenants. “I myself am the sole breadwinner of my children, and I am looking for a land house. But the prices do not drop from NIS 8,000-7,000 and people take.”
In practice, Ohana intends to block ads that are published without a rental price, and he thinks there should be a price limit of NIS 4,500. “I understand that this is an extreme move because there are all kinds of houses here, but the intention is to get homeowners to lower prices. I think the government is limited so I think the power is in the hands of the citizens. “Everyone should disclose prices, also because there are many apartment owners who prefer not to pay income tax.”
The text of the announcement, signed by the neighborhood leadership, led by Alon Levy, declares that “together with you we are ready to go to war against the incompetence of the state and the municipality in rental prices. We all understand what demand and supply are, but still someone needs to stop this spin.” For this purpose, they announced that the rental price of a 5-room apartment will reach NIS 11,000, a 4-room apartment up to NIS 9,750, and a 3-room apartment up to NIS 8,500. The recommendation is to limit the amount of renewable leases to an increase of up to 5%.
The leadership of the Bavli neighborhood called on tenants, landlords and apartment owners to work only with “cooperating” realtors. Moshe Yudkevitz, a realtor who has been working in the Lamed and North Tel Aviv neighborhoods for about ten years, who is on the neighborhood committee’s recommended list, says that he has not experienced such great demand so far. “There are no apartments for rent. There is tremendous pressure from tenants, and simply every apartment is hijacked no matter what the condition and what the price. We have a big problem here in the country. ”
Alon Levy, chairman of the neighborhood’s leadership, testifies that although he owns an apartment, many of his friends, even the wealthy, are unable to meet the rental prices in the neighborhood. And we decided to stop the snowball. I understand that the state at the macro level is not able to address the issue, so we are trying to act at the micro level. Neighborhood, city and then country. We have set a standard that will be agreed upon by the realtors and they will have to meet it when it comes to new apartments. “
Levy emphasizes that the set threshold only applies to new apartments, and the expectation is that older apartments will be rented at cheaper prices. Also, the neighborhood leadership has decided to block local WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages for renting apartments of the set sizes, and anyone who wants to post an ad will have to meet the set limits.