In the past year, we have repeatedly mentioned double-digit housing prices, which totaled 13% per year. But these are not only the prices of housing that have risen, but also the prices of rents, and at rates of tens of percent in some places. so We posted this weekBased on tests we conducted on the Yad2 website and WeCheck.
● Under the noses of decision makers: Rental prices are rising sharply, and this is the leading city
Not only in Tel Aviv, there has been a jump in rental prices in the past year, but also in Herzliya – for example, in 3-room apartments – with a 32% increase; Netivot with an increase of 28%; And Kfar Saba, where there was a 15% increase in price. In 4-room apartments, Raanana actually leads the table, with a 25% increase in the rental price. The average rent for a 4-room apartment in Raanana was NIS 5,500 a month a year ago, and today it is close to NIS 7,000 a month. An increase of such a rate – 25% – was also recorded in the rent of 4-room apartments in Tel Aviv.
In this week’s episode of the “Globes Submarine” podcast, we explained the reasons for this leap and brought the stories of tenants from different cities in Israel, who experience the leap in prices firsthand.
Keren and Danny from Ramat Hasharon: “We just gave up”
Keren and Danny (pseudonyms), 35, from Ramat Hasharon, are the parents of three children aged seven, four and a half and a year. For the past 4 years they have been living in a three-room apartment in the city, but since their baby daughter was born they have been looking to expand into a four-room apartment. “For half a year now, we’ve been searching day after day, apartment after apartment, refresh after refresh. We even launched a friends campaign on Facebook. We see a few apartments a week, leaping for every ad that comes up,” they say. “When we get to the place, it’s really a war. We stand in line with another 20-30 interested people. So if we come first, we shake hands and close the place. The problem is that a few hours later we find out the price has gone up, because those following us have already offered more. “Only a year ago, NIS 5,500 a month is now offered at NIS 6,000-7,000 a month. An apartment in our building that was offered three months ago for NIS 8,000 a month, is now offered at NIS 12,000 thousand. The market is insane and demand is abnormal.”
His partner, Keren, tells of a mask of anguish in the search for an apartment, which ended with him giving up. “We live five people in a three-room apartment, and that’s what it is at the moment. After we started talking seriously about rent of 10,000 shekels a month, we caught ourselves saying it was just excessive. We realized something was wrong here.”
What did you experience along the way?
“We were told that couples without children were preferred and there were even apartment owners who asked us to renovate the place at our expense at a cost of thousands of shekels, as a condition of entry. Others asked us to raise their cat.
“There was an apartment owner who asked us for collateral in the amount of NIS 30,000. He asked me to give him the amount in bills. Real methods from the underworld. The next day we found out that the price had risen to NIS 9,500. The owner of the apartment told me on the phone: ‘If you are ready for this price, your apartment.’ This is not a new apartment, not renovated, without a balcony and without a warehouse.
“Bottom line,” says Keren, “we are very frustrated by the situation, and feel desperate and suffocated. We put together more than NIS 20,000 a month. We work hard and do good jobs, and are unable to move to a slightly larger apartment in the neighborhood where we live today.”
Have you considered leaving Ramat Hasharon?
“Definitely, and we discovered that even in the cities around us – Herzliya, Kfar Saba and Raanana – the situation is also difficult and we will not earn much from moving there. The family lives next to us, our jobs are close, so it does not pay for us to move. Ours is here and that is what decided the matter. “
“We are the new poor”
L. has been living with his employee in the Florentine neighborhood of Tel Aviv for seven years, and pays about NIS 6,000 a month. It was recently announced that the rent will jump by NIS 1,000. Because of the helplessness in which she finds herself, she calls herself the “new poor.” “And all because we do not have our own apartment,” she says. “We are subject to market forces. The owner of the apartment himself is a decent person, but he has several apartments, he is a pensioner, all his children have houses. I’m not sure we can stay in Tel Aviv. It sucks. We are told, ‘So get out of Tel Aviv,’ but in Bat Yam and Jaffa, prices have also gone up. At the moment we have one old car, and if we have to leave the city we will have to completely change our lifestyle. And everything becomes more expensive. Both the food and the transport. We will reach the level of a third world country. “
According to S., “The landlord sent us a message that in three months when the contract expires he will raise the rent to NIS 7,000, and asked if we would like to stay on these terms. I was just angry. How do you do it after seven years of zero problems, and we are family ? It’s a roof, it’s not a meal in a restaurant. You can also choose not to do it. It’s really economic violence. It’s an exploitation of our helplessness. He knows we have no apartment of our own. We live in Florence for 15 years and the children in the education system here and where? In the end, quite by chance, an apartment of a friend who owns the apartment became vacant in the neighborhood and we moved into it. “
“It would have been better to take out a mortgage”
Shahar, 46, married and the father of two teenagers, has been living in a housing unit in Hod Hasharon for 14 years, with three rooms, and pays NIS 4,000 a month. The owner of his apartment recently asked to return and live in the unit, due to difficulties she herself experienced in the rental housing area. In Hod Hasharon, too, the search for apartments was not at all simple and was conducted mainly with realtors who, he said, “took over all the apartments. There are no longer any apartments that can be found that are not offered through a realtor.”
Only after much effort was he able to find a 4-room apartment in the city at a rent of NIS 6,700 a month, when the family who lived in the apartment before him paid a thousand shekels less: around NIS 5,700 a month. He said, “It is very difficult today to be renting an apartment in Israel, probably now when it is a market of tenants and not of tenants. I never feel safe, but always feel temporary. This is a life of constant stress. I have friends who live abroad and where the rent is supervised. And tidy. They can look long term. In retrospect, paying her mortgage is less scary than living a lifetime rental, because when interest rates go up, her mortgage will go up by several hundred shekels. I need to increase my expenses not by 0.4% (the increase in the interest rate), but by 40%. ”