WeCheck, an outfit dedicated to researching Israel’s rental market to support both landlords and tenants, reported this week that the overall supply of apartments for rent in Israel has jumped to 19,653 in October, compared to 18,747 in September, and 15,818 in October 2022, an overall annual rise of 24%.
But that’s not all. It appears that the October 7 massacre and Operation Iron Swords that followed have influenced Israel’s rental market in amazing detail. For instance, in Ashkelon, the largest city near the Gaza border, the number of vacant apartments ready for new tenants jumped in one week from a daily average of 17 to 35.
Ashdod, another major city that endured hundreds of Hamas rocket launches, showed a rise from a daily average of 12 to 23 vacant apartments for rent.
But that was to be expected: the renting population in Israel is transient and it only makes sense for them to get out of the line of fire if they can afford to. However, the war affected Israel’s three biggest cities as well. In the last two weeks of October, the supply of apartments for rent increased in Jerusalem by 47%, in Haifa by 50%, and in Tel Aviv, where the supply of apartments with built-in bomb shelters (Mamad) is among the lowest in the country – 28%, recorded a 22.5% increase of the supply of rental apartments over the last two weeks of October, which constituted a jump of 93.3% compared to October 2022.
The Marker quoted WeCheck CEO Rami Ronen who said that “Following the rocket launches at Metropolitan Tel Aviv and the South, apartment owners are looking for temporary residences in safer communities, and are offering their apartments for rent. Students who have signed leases are trying to sublet those apartments because the war is now threatening to delay the start of the school year. We assume that this situation will also create a secondary market for short-term sublets.”
Rents have generally gone down as well. Tel Aviv saw a 2.8% drop in one month, from an average monthly rent of NIS 7,057 ($1,823.44) in September to NIS 6,857 ($1,771.76) in October. Herzliya registered a 3.9% drop, Rishon LeZion 2.5%, and Petah Tikvah 2%.
