The Ministry of Finance is introducing a measure whereby the Central Bureau of Statistics will be the only official body that will be allowed to publish home price indices. This emerges from a proposed resolution submitted to the housing cabinet yesterday, Walla! News reports.
The proposal, which has not yet been finally approved, is to improve the Central Bureau of Statistics figures and to make them more accessible to the public while cancelling other price surveys such as that of the Chief Government Assessor and probably that of the Ministry of Construction and Housing as well.
The decision has already raised an uproar in government ministries and in the real estate industry, even before it has been approved. It did not appear on the agenda of the housing cabinet and has not been sent to ministers for perusal as required.
There are two parts to the decision. The first relates to the Central Bureau of Statistics and states that the Public Council for Statistics, the body that oversees the Central Bureau of Statistics, should instruct the advisory board on improving data on the real estate industry to complete within a specified time (probably 90 days) the work it has begun on upgrading housing data, and to be ready to implement the changes and recommendations within a further 120 days.
The second part states that once this work is completed, the Central Bureau of Statistics will be the sole body authorized to publish residential real estate price data on behalf of the government. The proposal also states that the Central Bureau of Statistics' data must be changed to become simple for the general public to understand.
The Chief Government Assessor has been publishing housing price figures for ten years. The Ministry of Construction and Housing has, until recently, also published detailed quarterly reports on average and median home prices in various communities around Israel.
During yesterday's housing cabinet meeting two proposals arose that are not mentioned in the written draft. One is that the minister of justice, to whose ministry the Chief Government Assessor belongs, should be able to object to or make changes in the decision. The other is that publication of the various housing indices should be allowed, but only in consultation with the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Sources close to the Chief Government Assessor and in the real estate industry regard the decision as amounting to a gag, an attempt to put an end to an index that might not necessarily show the trend the government would like to see in housing prices. A dispute recently arose between the Ministry of Finance and the Chief Government Assessor in the Ministry of Justice because of the latest quarterly survey published by the assessor, which indicated that housing prices were rising, while the figures published by the Central Bureau of Statistics for the same period indicated a fall.
Some sources say that the reason for the Ministry of Finance's move is that the Buyer Fixed Price Program, designed to make cheaper homes available for first-time buyers, is not reflected in the Chief Government Assessor's figures, but is reflected in the figures published by the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Real Estate Appraisers Association in Israel chairman Ehud Danus said, "It seems that the minister of finance has recently been doing anything he can to deal with various matters that have nothing to do with stabilizing housing prices. This applies to the tax on multi-home owners he recently tried to pass, and to the current decision as well, which is more appropriate to the high-tech industry and the creation for a virtual reality or alternatively to benighted regimes that do not allow free expression. The Real Estate Appraisers Association has no problem in principle with establishing a single index to be published by the government of Israel. It believes that the only body or person that can do so in a professional and transparent manner is the Chief Government Assessor and not the Central Bureau of Statistics, whose index is inaccurate, not uniform, not transparent and clear, and, at the very least, not final at the time that it is published.
"We call on Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked not to allow the harm that is sought to the credibility and professionalism of the appraisal division that is under her authority."
Danus said that if the Chief Government Assessor's survey stops being published, the Real Estate Appraisers Association will put together its own index in accordance with the same standards, and will publish it.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 20, 2016
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