As market slows, home sellers cut asking prices

Demand for homes is falling, and an examination we carried out on the basis of data from the Yad2 for-sale website and the Central Bureau of Statistics shows that a homeowner trying to sell in Tel Aviv could find themselves on the market for four years. In Netanya and Rishon LeZion it could be two years. This is calculated on the basis of the number of properties advertised for sale and the number of deals per month. Homeowners aware of the situation adapt by reducing their asking prices. On Yad2, 27% of advertisers have reduced their prices to meet the low level of demand.

High interest rates hurt everyone

Most of the reports on the poor state of the market focus on the tough situation of the real estate developers, who hold an aggregate excess supply of nearly 84,000 homes. According to Central Bureau of Statistics figures, in the period August-October the number of homes sold was 9.8% lower than in May-July 2025. When it comes to secondhand homes, the decline is steeper, at 18.6%, and 8.7% in comparison with the corresponding period of 2024. In Bet Shemesh, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the decline was 25% in Bet Shemesh, 19.7% in Ramat Gan, and 19% in Holon.

According to the Ministry of Finance chief economist, in the past fifteen years there have been only two months in which sales of secondhand homes were lower: April 2020, when the country was in lockdown because of the Covid pandemic; and in October 2023, when the Swords of Iron war broke out. In both those months, there were about 1,500 sales of secondhand homes. In October this year there were 2,600 sales, much more than those disastrous months, but far fewer than in any normal month in the past fifteen years.

It could be, however, that October 2023 is not the bottom. Since the second half of 2021, the secondhand residential real estate market has been slow. The high interest rates, even after the recent 0.25% cut in the Bank of Israel’s key rate, have hit both new and secondhand buyers hard.

Over 10,000 ads versus 217 deals

The average monthly number of sales of secondhand homes in 2025 is 4,200. In 2024 it was 4,300. This compares with 7,800 sales monthly in 2021. In 2023, in the period before the Swords of Iron war, the market was in a deep trough, with just 3,800 sales monthly.

A further indication of the poor state of the market is an examination, the first of its kind, that we carried out of the ratio between the number of for-sale ads appearing on the Yad2 website this week and the average monthly number of deals in the main cities in Israel per the Central Bureau of Statistics. Tel Aviv emerges as the worst place for sellers. 10,293 ads appear on the website, while the average monthly number of deals that took place in the city in the second and third quarters was just 217.

Home purchase cancellations on the rise

Theoretically this means that it will take almost four years before all the homes advertised are sold. In Rishon LeZion, 3,115 homes are advertised for sale, but on average only 117 deals take place each month, which means that it will take 2.2 years to sell them all. In Netanya, with 3,180 homes advertised and 122 deals each month on average, the situation is similar.

In the other major cities, Jerusalem and Haifa, the situation is a little better, as they lead in the number of deals in secondhand homes. In Jerusalem, the outcome is eighteen months to sell all the 5,272 homes advertised on Yad2, while in Haifa the period is sixteen months, with 4,573 homes advertised and an average of 291 deals monthly.

This is the reality facing homeowners who decide to offer their homes for sale. They may not be cognizant of all the figures cited here, but they don’t need them. They are well aware of the thin response to their advertisements, the offers a long way below their asking prices, and the long months in which they make no progress toward selling.

Cutting prices

The figures were analyzed by Yad2, which took first place in the real estate sector in the “Globes” brands rankings.

The company found that many advertisers of homes for sale on its website have to “revise process downwards”. In the third quarter of this year, 27% of advertisers of homes for sale reduced their asking prices, which compares with 23% in the third quarter last year and two years ago.

Since the third quarter of last year, it is noticeable that more homeowners have come to terms with the fact that the market will not go back to what it was four years ago, and more of them are choosing to compromise on price.

Yad2 also examined reductions in asking prices by city. Asking prices fell by 8% to NIS 33,500 per square meter in Herzliya, by 6.5% to NIS 18,000 per square meter in Hadera, by 6% to NIS 28,400 per square meter in Hod Hasharon, and there was a similar decline to NIS 29,000 per square meter in Modi’in.

In Haifa, asking prices fell by 3.3% to NIS 18,000 per square meter; in Tel Aviv they fell by 1.5% to NIS 47,500 per square meter; and in Jerusalem they fell by 0.5% to NIS 33,000 per square meter.

On the other hand, in Tiberias, Netivot, Kiryat Motzkin, Holon, Nahariya, Sderot, and Ramat Gan homeowners have actually been asking more this year than they did last year.

Yad2 chief revenue officer Kobi Franco told “Globes”: “We are seeing a clear change in the market’s behavior. Homes are staying on the shelf for longer, and the gap between the expectations of sellers and the actual level of demand is obliging them to adjust prices.

“One in every four advertisers on Yad2 is now revising their price, as part of a process of repricing that characterizes markets in periods of uncertainty. At the same time, the interest rate cut is starting to create expectations of improvement in financing terms, which is making both buyers and sellers more cautious.

“In an environment like this, realtors and other professionals play an important role in bridging the gap between the two sides, in guiding towards realistic pricing, in conducting negotiations, and assisting in closing deals. Good deals can also be found in new homes from contractors.”

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on December 23, 2025.

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