August 1st: Business in Brief

Sales of new homes down 18% in June; Amdocs extends Ra’anana lease.

By GLOBES
Amdocs Raanana (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Amdocs Raanana
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Sales of new homes down 18% in June
By ADI BEN-ISRAEL
There were 1,441 new home sales in June 2011, 18 percent less than in the previous month, and 18.6% less than in June 2010, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported on Sunday.
The number of homes sold was the lowest for a single month since January 2009.
Demand for new homes totaled 2,427 homes in June, 27% less than in May and 31% less than in June last year. This was the lowest level since October 2008.
Supply of new homes rose for the fourth consecutive month to 11,929 homes in June from 11,726 in May, an increase of 1.7%. This was the highest level since September 2007. Housing inventory, at the current sales pace, is sufficient for eight months, up from 7.8 months in May.
Amdocs extends Ra’anana lease
By AVIV LEVY REIT
1 Ltd. and its partner have extended Amdocs Ltd.’s lease on its premises in Ra’anana by eight and a half years, through December 2019. Rent on the 32,000-square meter building and parking spaces will be NIS 25 million a year, linked to the Consumer Price Index. Most of the rent will be paid in shekels and the rest in dollars.
Beginning in January 2013, Amdocs will also rent an additional 12,000 square meters and parking spaces for NIS 9 million a year. NICE Systems Ltd. and Sunflower Sustainable Investments Ltd. currently each lease 6,000 square meters of this space. REIT 1’s owns half of the additional space (the area currently leased to NICE). Its share of the net operating income (NOI) on the lease will be NIS 32 million a year.