Israelis invest in US property and American celebs buy Israel homes
Israelis invest in US property and American celebs buy Israel homes
It’s a mutual attraction
American celebrities have been sifting the Israel housing market lately, and Israeli investors are returning the favour.
Israel institutional investors have put an estimated ILS50 billion (USD13.2 billion) in US real estate, reported Haaretz. Meanwhile, values of Israel residential properties have skyrocketed, with prices in Tel Aviv alone increasing by 84 percent from 2008 to 2015, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
While such increases would make gainful investments out of Israel houses, yields from property investments in the US far eclipse those in the Holy Land. Citing an industry source, Haaretz reported that Florida, Maryland, Georgia, Texas and New Jersey, among other states, offer returns of up to 6.5 percent.
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“Despite rising prices, the American market is very interesting,” Jay Zwiebel, executive managing director of Israeli-American firm Harbor Group, told Haaretz. “It’s a huge market, very fluid and very transparent – conditions that attract investors.” New York continues to be a “very strong market” too, with “many buyers and very many sellers.”
Yet American celebrities, many of whom do not profess Judaism or have tenuous links to it, are ditching the lights of New York for the scenic delights of Tel Aviv. The “Keeping Up with the Kardashian” sisters were reportedly in talks last year to take over two beachfront apartments in the city for USD30 million; Khloe Kardashian’s husband Scott Disick was exploring an investment in a USD5 million penthouse. Pop singer Madonna, practitioner of the mystical Jewish sect Kabbalah, purportedly negotiated a USD20-million deal for a luxury unit in a tower designed by Richard Meier along Rothschild Boulevard.
On the same road, actor and tech investor Ashton Kutcher was reported to have hunted for office space, in a country being billed as “Silicon Wadi,” the latter being the Arabic word for “valley.”
“Tel Aviv is a very good investment: the economy’s stable, and real estate prices have literally doubled in five years,” Israel-born movie producer Avi Lerner told The Hollywood Reporter.
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Source: Property Report