Housing starts fell by 11% in the first quarter of 2012 compared with the corresponding quarter of 2011, and by 6% compared with the preceding quarter, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported today. Notwithstanding the housing shortage and high real estate prices, and the government's plans to flood the market with land for residential construction to cut prices, housing starts fell to 9,666 units in the first quarter from 10,904 units in the corresponding quarter and 10,249 units in the preceding quarter.
Despite the housing shortage, and the necessity of high-density housing, more than a third of the housing starts - 36% - are single houses, and the rest are apartments.
37% of the housing starts in the first quarter were in the Central District and 11% were in the Tel Aviv District. The Jerusalem District accounted for 9% of the housing starts. Yavne had the most housing starts, at 758 units, followed by Rehovot, with 474 units. The biggest increase in housing starts was in the settlement of Kadima-Zoran, with 260 starts - 12 times more than in the corresponding quarter, while both Ashdod and Or Akiva had an increase of 160%.
Housing starts in Netanya, a focus of construction in the past decade, fell by 51% compared with the corresponding quarter. The drop in Tel Aviv was the same.
The number of homes under construction at the end of March reached a 13-year high of 82,904 units, 13% more than a year earlier. On the other hand, the number of housing completion was barely changed at 8,406 units.
The need for smaller and cheaper apartments seems to have been grasped to some extent. The total residential space under construction fell to 1.86 million square meters at the end of March from 2.2 million square meters a year earlier, indicating that the average home space fell by 5% to 192 square meters from 202 square meters.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 31, 2012
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