Home sales jump 30% in December

Jerusalem had the largest slump in new-home sales, down 41% to 1,415 apartments in 2011.

By EINAT PAZ-FRANKEL
Jerusalem construction 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Jerusalem construction 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
New-home sales increased 30 percent to 1,935 in December compared with November, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported Tuesday.
New-home sales fell to 19,000 in 2011 from 22,600 in 2010, while the housing inventory rose 33% to 20,000 at the end of 2011 from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said.
Jerusalem had the largest slump in new-home sales, down 41% from 2,417 apartments in 2010 to 1,415 apartments in 2011.
Housing demand – new-home sales plus housing starts for homes not for sale – totaled 3,180 housing units in December, of which 1,244 were for the owners’ use, buyers groups and build-your-own home projects. Housing demand was 20% higher than in November, but for the whole year fell 6% compared with 2010.
The largest housing demand in 2011 was in Tel Aviv, with 1,120 apartments. It fell 37% in Ashdod and Petah Tikva.
Thirty-five percent of housing demand was in central Israel. Demand fell in all districts except for Tel Aviv, where it rose by 6%, and in Judea and Samaria, where it rose 16% following the building freeze in 2010.
Forty-three percent of the housing inventory at the end of 2011 was in the central region, 21% was in the South, 12% in the Tel Aviv area, 11% in the Jerusalem area, 7% in the Haifa area and 5% in the North. The housing inventory rose 108% in the South, 43% in the Haifa area, 37% in the central region, 11% in the North and the Jerusalem area and 5% in the Tel Aviv area.