Gov’t Urban Renewal Program to Move Out of Big Cities

Ever-rising real-estate prices in Israel have “lifted all boats,” to the extent that home prices have risen by hundreds of percent over the past few years, even in formerly poor areas. As a result, the government has decided to retrigger the mission of the Amidar company – which in the past had built and administered low-cost housing in inner cities in Israel and will now take the apartments it owns, fix them up, and sell them on the open market.

The profits will be used to build new low-cost housing in peripheral areas of northern and southern Israel. According to officials, the program will not only advance urban renewal plans in the center of the country but help strengthen areas in the periphery where real-estate investments are hard to come by.

The plan is expected to yield some 2,000 apartments for sale in in-demand areas. The money earned will go toward fixing up over 3,000 homes in peripheral areas, officials said.