It is very nice that housing prices have gone down. The question is why have they gone down. Finance Minister Kachlon is throwing sand in our eyes when he talks about the price reduction. The real barometer for the future of housing prices is the number of new building projects. Kachlon has reduced the housing supply instead of increasing it. This will necessarily cause housing prices to dramatically rise further down the line.
When the Finance Minister constructs all sorts of obstacles for contractors to overcome before they can build, when he adds even more taxes to be paid by those who actually do purchase apartments, when he does not ensure an increased supply of apartments – he paralyzes the housing market. The reduction in housing prices is a direct result of that. The housing market in Israel is frozen. When there won’t be any apartments for young couples to buy, the artificial reduction in housing prices will not help them.
The time has come to truly resuscitate the housing market. Land currently held by the Israel Land Authority must be privatized, the process of attaining construction authorization must be simplified for contractors and the land in Judea and Samaria must be opened for construction. The time to take these steps is now. We are already beyond the last minute and the housing market is in crisis.
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