As part of its efforts to expand the number of apartments for sale in the hope of lowering prices, the Housing Ministry and the Israel Lands Administration on Sunday announced that they would begin marketing land meant for the construction of residential housing. A total of 1,700 of those homes would be built in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
The majority of the homes – 700 – will be built in Jerusalem, 387 of them in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, and 311 in Gilo. Both neighborhoods are part of the areas liberated by Israel in the Six Day War.
In addition to the new construction, land for 380 apartments that had been previously not been bid on by contractors will be offered again. Those homes will be build in the Gilo and Har Homa (Homat Shmuel) neighborhoods.
One thousand and thirty homes will be built in towns in Judea and Samaria. Of those, 284 will be built in the Samaria town of Elkana, and 196 in Karnei Shomron, also in Samaria. 114 will be built in Maale Adumim, and 102 in Givat Ze'ev, both suburbs of Jerusalem.
Beitar Ilit, the hareidi town south of Jerusalem, will get 238 new homes, while 80 will be built in Adam, north of Jerusalem. Topping off the list will be Ariel, in central Samaria, where 18 new homes will be built.
Commenting on the announcement, Housing Minister Uri Ariel said that his office “continues to market lands for construction of homes around Israel. Thanks to our efforts there has been a noticeable rise in housing starts. Today we are building an average of 43,000 new homes a year. With that, in order to bring about a major change in the housing market, we need to increase our efforts to build new homes,” he said.
Over the past five years, experts said, housing prices in Israel have risen about 70%, as growing demand has met sparse supply, driving prices all around the country higher.