Neighborhood Watch: A second home in Mitzpeh Ramon?

The desert town has been ‘discovered’ as a possible location for an inexpensive holiday haunt – something that many, even today, don’t consider a luxury.

By JOHN BENZAQUEN
Mayor Flora Shoshan (photo credit: Courtesy)
Mayor Flora Shoshan
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Mitzpe Ramon is a desert town located astride one of the two roads leading to Eilat. Overlooking the Ramon Crater, it lies at an altitude of 860 meters. It is a charming town because it is small, and unlike the demographic makeup of many small “development” towns, it has a well-balanced population whose socioeconomic level is relatively high.
It is also blessed with an excellent climate: dry because of the desert, and relatively cool because of the high altitude. In high summer, it can be very hot when the sun is shining; but when the sun sets, it becomes quite cool.
Mitzpe Ramon had its beginnings in 1951. It started life as a camp for the workers building the road to Eilat. In the early 1960s, the government started settling new immigrants, mainly from North Africa and Romania, in the town.
It was – and has remained – one of the most distant and isolated towns in Israel, and that is part of its charm. But calling it isolated is really a misnomer. In “real terms” it isn’t isolated at all. It is an hour’s drive from Beersheba and a two and a half-hour drive from Eilat. For those hailing from the US, Canada, South Africa or Australia, an hour’s drive from a major metropolitan center, with good road links, is nothing to complain about.
Today, Mitzpe Ramon has a population of nearly 7,000, made up of the original residents and families of military personnel serving in the region, as well as others who decided to make the town their home. The municipality is very keen on attracting new immigrants from Englishspeaking countries as well as young professional families. Mayor Flora Shoshan told Metro: “Mitzpe Ramon is an amazing place to live in, especially for families with children. We have one of the best educational systems in the Negev and a very high quality of life.
“The town is developing fast, especially its tourist industry, which means many exciting business opportunities for newcomers. And, last but not least, it is a very warm and welcoming community.”
One of the mainstays of the economy is tourism, and Mitzpe Ramon has become quite a tourism center in its own right. The town and surrounding area offer more than 2,000 beds in three hotels, hostels and country lodgings. The hotels include the Bereshit (Hebrew for “Genesis”), considered one of the most luxurious in Israel.
Mitzpe Ramon’s real-estate scene is in many ways influenced by the demand for housing generated by the tourist trade. Many of its dwellings are rented out to people working in tourism (and the military).
Gil Attali deals with real-estate brokerage in Mitzpe Ramon, and is very upbeat on the town’s real-estate potential.
“One of the new trends in the local real-estate market is of affluent, middle-aged couples buying and renovating a dwelling. They use it as a holiday home and eventually retire there. Demand from this clientele is growing because Mitzpe Ramon does not have the all the negative issues associated with a development town. It radiates peace and quiet and has an excellent climate, with clean, healthy mountain air. In this polluted age, that’s important.”
So Mitzpe Ramon has been “discovered” as a possible location for an inexpensive holiday home – and in these times of rising living standards, a second home isn’t considered the height of luxury by many.
Nevertheless, the real-estate market in such a place has its limitations. It is very small, and there have been no new building projects in the past 30 years. Properties become available only when people die, or move somewhere else.
During the past year, everything on the market has been snapped up.
Since everything built in Mitzpe Ramon – with the exception of the single-family homes in the Bnei Beitcha (Build Your Own Home) scheme – was put up by the Construction and Housing or Defense ministry, its dwellings can be divided into four categories:
• Housing built by the government in the Sixties for the first settlers. These consist of single-story blocks with apartments in a row, each with a small patch of garden. The original dwelling was small – 45 square meters. But many residents have enlarged the basic structure.
• Patio-type dwellings. These are also built in a row, and some have a second floor. “Patio” refers to the small enclosed paved yard.
Semidetached dwellings of 60 sq.m., built on a 250-sq.m. plot. They were originally single-storied, but a second floor can be added.
• Three-story apartment blocks with a floor area of approximately 80 sq.m., built by the Defense Ministry in the Eighties for use by the families of servicemen in the area. Today, most of the officers and their families prefer more spacious dwellings, and the original ones are being gradually being sold off.
There are, in addition, as mentioned above, the single-family homes of Bnei Beitcha. The government, through the Israel Lands Authority, sells land to this scheme on condition that the houses built on it are for domestic use.
There are several dozens of these dwellings, and demand for new housing is mostly concentrated on them.
The ILA recently had a tender for 26 plots under this scheme, ranging from 350 to 420 sq.m. Demand was over and above supply – 106 applicants.
Prices in Mitzpe Ramon are very low by local standards. An apartment in the old row blocks can cost from NIS 300,000 to NIS 350,000, depending on the state of the apartment and the amount of work needed to make it habitable.
The patio dwellings sell for NIS 400,000 on average, and the semi-detached ones for around NIS 500,000.
A single-family Bnei Beitcha house recently went for NIS 1.2 million.