Real estate investors are fleeing Tel Aviv and Beersheba - and buying in this city
Ministry of Finance data indicates that multi-property owners are no longer purchasing apartments in high-demand areas, or even in Beersheba. They are moving to cities like Tiberias: "Even an 8% purchase tax does not deter them."
Several important data points on the real estate market will be published in the coming week, ahead of the release of the Consumer Price Index. The first are the Central Bureau of Statistics data on real estate transactions and the Ministry of Finance's real estate review. Mortgage data will also be published this week.
According to Central Bureau of Statistics data, there is a 17% increase in the number of owners of five or more apartments, but the Ministry of Finance claims that this still does not solve the issue of the many apartments that have not been sold. Recently, there have been transactions where investors, including foreign residents, purchased several apartments simultaneously, despite the 8% purchase tax.
Galit Ben Naim, Deputy Chief Economist at the Ministry of Finance, explains the purchasing patterns of multi-property owners:
"Until two years ago, the Tel Aviv area (which also includes Bat Yam) led in the share of multi-property owners in total investor purchases—one-third of all investors purchasing apartments in the area. People who purchase several properties simultaneously are not deterred even by a high purchase tax of 8%."
According to Ben Naim, something changed in the first five months of 2026: this share dropped to less than a quarter, and Tiberias became the leader, with about 120 apartments purchased between January and May.
Today, about 1.8 million people in Israel own an apartment, but over 400,000 people own two or more apartments. It is estimated that about 90,000 people currently own a third apartment or more, with most of these apartments being rented out.
The review also emphasizes Haifa. While the majority of investor purchases in this area are in the city of Haifa itself, the weight of multi-property owners in investor purchases there dropped by almost half, from 30% to only 16%. "And perhaps it is no coincidence that Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, and Haifa are among the top cities in terms of the stock of unsold new apartments," Ben Naim concluded.
