The mess at the ILA is taking its toll: A sharp drop in the number of land tenders and developer wins
In the first half of 2026, the number of land tenders published by the ILA dropped by 63% year-on-year. Data shows that 44.4% of tenders ended without a winner.
The number of land complexes for which marketing tenders by the Israel Land Authority (ILA) reached the publication of results in the first half of the year continued to drop sharply, according to a check conducted by the Yesodot Group, published in the "Nadlan Center".
The check examined the first halves of the years 2022–2026 and found that in the first half of 2026, results were published for only 99 complexes, compared to 268 complexes in the same period last year — a decrease of about 63% within a year. Compared to the first half of 2022, when results were published for 743 complexes, this is a cumulative decrease of about 87% within four years. The data shows that this is a consistent trend: in the first half of 2023, 599 tenders were published, in 2024 the number dropped to 317, in 2025 to 268, and in the first half of the current year it amounted to only 99.
Parallel to the reduction in the number of tenders, the rate of tenders that did not end in a win also increased significantly. While in the first half of 2022 only six out of 743 tenders closed without a winner — a rate of 0.8% — in 2023 this rate rose to 12%, in 2024 to 16.4%, and in 2025 already to 20.1%. In the first half of 2026, 44 out of 99 tenders ended without a winner — about 44.4% of all published tenders. Only 55 tenders ended in a win, compared to 214 in the same period in 2025 and 737 in the first half of 2022 — a decrease of about 92.5% within four years.
The Yesodot Group explains that the data points to two separate trends: one is a decrease in the volume of tenders published by the state, meaning a reduction in the supply of residential land marketed. The second is a decrease in economic feasibility and the ability of developers to compete for the land, expressed in the continuous rise in the rate of tenders that do not receive bids.
Sharp volatility in revenues and housing supply
The research department of Yesodot also examined the number of housing units included in tenders that ended in a win. After the number of housing units dropped by 51.4% in the first half of 2023 — from 17,765 units in 2022 to 8,627 — a recovery was recorded in 2024 with an increase of 68.5% to 14,540 units, and in 2025 a moderate increase of 4.7% was added to 15,230 units. However, in the first half of 2026, the trend reversed once again. The number of housing units in tenders won by developers dropped by 49.7% and amounted to only 7,664 units. Compared to 2022, this is a cumulative decrease of about 56.9% in the number of housing units that actually moved from the tender stage to the winning stage.
State revenues from land and development costs in tenders that ended successfully also showed sharp volatility. In the first half of 2022, revenues amounted to about 12.54 billion shekels, but in 2023 they dropped by 66.4% to about 4.21 billion shekels. In the two years that followed, a recovery was recorded, with an increase to about 8.28 billion shekels in 2024 and then to a peak of about 14.92 billion shekels in the first half of 2025. In contrast, in the first half of 2026, revenues dropped by 80.3% and amounted to only about 2.93 billion shekels — the lowest level in the period examined.
Adv. Eyal Blecher Cohen, CEO of the Yesodot Group, notes:
"The data points to a double failure evident in the first half of 2026. The number of tenders dropped dramatically, and at the same time, an increasing proportion of tenders ends without a winner. It is impossible to attribute this picture only to the interest rate or the slowdown in the industry. The ILA has operated for a long time without managerial stability and without an orderly marketing plan that allows the market to plan ahead."
He further stated that the great danger lies not only in the low number of tenders today, but in the fact that a tender that does not go out or does not end in a win today is a project that will not enter the planning pipeline. The public might feel the price in a few years, when it turns out that a gap has been created in the supply of available land.
Eli Rosenthal, CEO of the Contractors and Builders Association in the Tel Aviv and Center District, said regarding the data:
"The ILA manages about 93% of the state's land, and therefore it is not just another player in the market but the most central and significant land supplier for the construction industry. To a large extent, it is also the largest land speculator in Israel: it determines when the land will go to market, in what volume, under what conditions, and at what price."
Shmuel Lahav Zalmanovitch, CEO-Owner of Magma Real Estate Marketing, concluded that the shortage of land tenders is not a theoretical problem of the future, but a decision that is already shaping the market structure of the coming years, necessitating a constant sequence of land marketing to prevent further price increases.
