Survey: One Third of Young Adults Get Parental Rent Assistance

A survey sponsored by the Tel Aviv Municipality has found that 36 percent of renters in Israel receive help from their parents in paying the rent, Globes said on Thursday.

The survey, commissioned by the city’s Center for Young Adults, also told of other hardships relating to the burden of renting: 31% of respondents said they had to move because of a rent increase; and 35% complained that their landlord refused to pay for repairs that are legally the property owner’s responsibility.

The survey contacted 1,080 people during January. Most were living in Tel Aviv (62%), with 9% in Yerushalayim, 8% in Be’er Sheva. Other respondents were from Ramat Gan, Haifa, Rehovot, Petah Tikva, Givatayim, Holon, and elsewhere. However, it did not seek to obtain a representative sample of the population, but only provided a glance at developments in the rental market.

Insecurity was found to be a widespread problem, as 29% said they had to move at least three times in the past five years.

“The survey shows once again the rental market in Israel is broken; the steep price increases and lack of stability are wearing out our youth,” said Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai on Wednesday. “It is a lawless market, and the party needs to be ended by legislation to regulate and improve terms for both renters and landlords.”

Huldai’s assertion about lawlessness was confirmed at a hearing on Wednesday of the Knesset’s Special Committee for the Transparency and Accessibility of Government Information, chaired by Zionist Camp MK Stav Shaffir.

There it emerged that the Israel Tax Authority and the Ministry of Finance could not provide comprehensive data on the rental market.

The Tax Authority representative said that a request for information was sent to 37,000 landlords for the first time in 2014. Seventy-eight percent reported renting their property for the first time, while tens of thousands of landlords were went unaudited.