News Brief02:30 AM

(IsraelNN.com) According to government statistics, 11,010 apartments were purchased in the first 10 months of 2007, 3.8 percent more than the year before.  950 apartments were sold in October of 2007, 870 of them new apartments in different stages of the building process.

28 percent of the apartments were sold in Tel Aviv—a 6.3 percent drop from 2006.  Sales were up in the north, in Haifa, and in the south.  Sales were up in Judea and Samaria as well, where 313 new apartments were sold in the first 10 months of 2007 as compared to 298 the year before.  Many Jewish communities in the region lack housing for sale due to an ongoing building freeze.