There was a significant drop in the total number of construction starts last year over the number of construction starts in 2016, according to data published Tuesday by the Central Bureau of Statistics.
There was also a decline in the number of construction starts in the fourth quarter of 2017, since the same period in 2016.
According to the CBS, there was also a decline in the volume of active construction in Israel, as well as in the number of dwellings whose construction was completed, at the quarterly level.
These figures indicate that the continued decline in apartment sales during 2017 also also leading the contractors to begin to recalculate: they reduced their building.
The data reflect there were only 10,190 new apartment starts in the fourth quarter of 2017.
It’s the lowest figure since the third quarter of 2012, when construction starts stood at 8,739, as compared to the third quarter of 2017, during which there were 10,939 new apartment starts – a drop of 6.8 percent.
During the same period in 2016 there were 13,829 new apartment starts, reflecting a 26.3 percent decline over a 12-month period.