Contractors' head Bublil: The residential real estate market is boiling

"I read that the prime minister called apartment prices a 'social Holocaust', so I ask the question: why hasn’t the government taken emergency measures?" "The residential real estate market is boiling. It is again the country's locomotive, but this raises the question of whether the locomotive is going in the right direction, running at the right speed, or if we overheated the market, and apartments in Israel have become a commodity that citizens cannot afford," said Association of Contractors and Builders in Israel president Nissim Bublil at the "Globes" Real Estate Conference in Tel Aviv today. "We must act to make it possible for people to buy an apartment at a reasonable price."

"I read that the prime minister called apartment prices a 'social Holocaust', so I ask the question: Why hasn’t the government taken emergency measures? Today, we are paying for the lack of action over an entire decade. It is necessary to encourage and market housing units, especially in demand areas. Without the right infrastructure, we won't solve the problem, and it seems to me that they don’t understand here the importance of infrastructure."

Bublil criticized the Bank of Israel's policy of interest rate hikes. "The Bank of Israel raises the interest rate and mortgage borrowers are the main victims. Don’t they see the danger of raising the interest rate when interest rates are low the world over? It is necessary to pay attention to the housing market for young couples, and not to raise the interest rate for them. That's not a solution. It is necessary to increase the supply."

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 7, 2011

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