Tel Aviv
Tel AvivFlash 90

If you're planning to buy an apartment in Tel Aviv, it helps to be middle aged. Because apartments are so expensive, only well-established buyers can afford them – to the extent that the average age of apartment buyers in Tel Aviv is now 47.

A survey by Eldar Marketing, which is currently selling homes in 70 projects around the country, showed that the average age of Tel Aviv homebuyers has jumped by five years since 2004. Prices in the city have nearly doubled in that time, and show no signs of letting up: Home prices were up 5% in the third quarter of 2013 over the prices in the second quarter, after having risen 6% in the second quarter of 2012 over previous levels.

The study checked details of some 400 property details in Tel Aviv over the past year, including new, top-luxury projects, as well as second-hand apartments. Throughout the city and across all price ranges, the average age of home buyers is now 47 – and the vast majority of those buyers were able to afford homes only by selling an asset that has appreciated in the recent run-up in home prices.

Many of those buying apartments, especially in the center of the city, are not moving in themselves, but are buying them as investments and renting them out to young couples, who are effectively frozen out of buying in the city because of the high prices.