Yad Eliyahu Housing Prices Defy Tel Aviv Slump With 25.6% Rise Since 2020
A new study by Adi Gastfreund reveals that housing prices in Tel Aviv's Yad Eliyahu neighborhood rose by 25.6% between 2020 and 2026, defying the general downward trend in the city's real estate market.
The Yad Eliyahu Phenomenon: Defying the Tel Aviv Trend
Housing prices in Tel Aviv are declining, according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). However, this broad city-wide trend does not reflect the reality in every neighborhood. A new study has identified a striking exception: the neighborhood of Yad Eliyahu, where real estate prices are continuing to climb.
"We examined one neighborhood in depth and found no decline whatsoever. Instead, we found a sharp increase, precisely during the years when everyone claimed the Tel Aviv market was weakening," says the author of the study, real estate appraiser and attorney Adi Gastfreund.
Gastfreund analyzed 310 second-hand apartment transactions in the neighborhood from January 2020 to March 2026, based on Israel Tax Authority records. At the beginning of this period, the median price in Yad Eliyahu stood at 34,261 NIS per square meter. By the end, it reached 43,048 NIS per square meter—a 25.6% increase. During the same period, the CBS housing price index for the Tel Aviv district rose by only 19.4%, meaning Yad Eliyahu outperformed the average.
The Surprising Peak of 2025
While the price surges of 2021–2022 are well-documented, the study's findings for 2025 are particularly notable, as this was the year of the widely reported market slowdown. In 2025, second-hand apartment prices in Yad Eliyahu jumped by 12.6%, rising from 39,423 NIS to 44,372 NIS per square meter. Meanwhile, the CBS index for the Tel Aviv district edged up by just 0.7%.
Furthermore, 2025 was a peak year for transaction volume in the neighborhood, with 77 deals recorded compared to 55 in the previous year. This indicates a highly active market where numerous buyers and sellers agreed on higher price points, rather than a few statistical anomalies skewing the average.
Pricing the Neighborhood's Future
The most plausible explanation for this growth is that the market is pricing in future urban renewal. Interestingly, older apartments located outside designated renewal zones saw a 23.8% price increase—nearly matching the 25.8% rise seen in buildings with active plans on the table.
"Anyone buying an older apartment in Yad Eliyahu today is not just buying the property itself. They are buying an option on the neighborhood's future, and this holds true even for buildings with no current plans," Gastfreund explains.
Other contributing factors include the neighborhood's lower starting price point relative to central Tel Aviv and its growing appeal to young families. To ensure statistical reliability, the study focused strictly on second-hand transactions (excluding 847 new contractor sales) and controlled for variables such as apartment size, floor, and parking.
