New data: Tiberias and Jerusalem lead in the rate of investors owning multiple apartments

Tiberias, Safed, and Jerusalem are the leading cities in the rate of involvement of investors owning three or more apartments in the first five months of 2026. This emerges from an analysis by the Chief Economist's Department at the Ministry of Finance regarding the geographical distribution of these investors. The data further shows that in the Lower Galilee, Haifa, and Tel Aviv regions, major investors are showing less involvement this year than in the past.

The data published by the Senior Deputy to the Chief Economist at the Ministry of Finance, Galit Ben Naim, points to a decrease in the rate of "major" investors, who own at least three apartments, to a level of about 20% of all apartment purchases. In numerical terms, this amounts to about 1,200 transactions carried out by such investors in the first five months of the year, an average of about 240 per month.

This is a decrease of more than a third compared to 2024, when the rate of major investors reached about 30% of purchases. In that year, major investors purchased about 4,500 apartments, meaning about 375 apartments per month.

The map of major investors, who own three or more apartments, has changed significantly from 2024 to 2026. In 2024, the capital of major investors was Tel Aviv, where they constituted a third of the investors who purchased apartments in the city; this year, by contrast, they constitute only about 20%.

Haifa and Beersheba were also popular with major investors in 2024, accounting for about 30% of all investors who purchased apartments there. In 2026, their weight in Haifa was cut by almost half (16%), and in Beersheba by a third (20%).

The areas that lead today in major investors are different. The first is the Tiberias tax district, which includes the entire Upper Galilee and the Galilee Panhandle, where almost a quarter of all investors are considered major; the second is Jerusalem, where the weight of major investors reached 23% in the first five months of the year. Although the weight of major investors has also decreased in these places, it has done so at lower rates compared to the declines recorded elsewhere.

A deeper examination revealed that in the city of Tiberias, 45% of all investor purchases were made by major investors, and a large number of such investors were also recorded in Safed. It can be inferred from the numbers that the phenomenon of major investors today is prominent mainly in cities identified with a large Haredi public.

This public has been identified for years with multiple apartment purchases, and its representatives in the Knesset are among the vocal opponents of increasing taxes on investors. Even when they were forced to vote in favor of increasing the purchase tax due to coalition considerations, they were among the prominent voices against making the tax permanent, and agreed only to its continuation as a temporary order.