The Ministry of Construction and Housing (“Misrad Hashikun”) decided to delay the discounted housing raffles due to the overwhelming number of people trying to sign up at the last moment.
Zeev Elkin extended the last day a person can sign up for a Teudat Zakaut to yesterday, March 29th. The idea behind the extension is that hopefully the people that tried signing up in the past few weeks will have the opportunity to do so.
As a reminder, only with the Teudat Zakaut can one enter the raffles. If you contacted or tried to sign up before March 30th, you will be contacted in order to finish the process as the Misrad Hashikun said that the companies (Alonim, Milgam, and Amidar) will try to get back to the people that signed up. Since the announcement of this current raffle 57,500 people signed up for a Teudat Zakaut, of which 44,000 people have been approved.
Now that the deadline has past, new applicants won’t be able to sign up until April 11th. The announcement of the winners of the raffles themselves was similarly delayed now to the end of May of this year. The government is hoping that people who signed up for the project will cool off the housing market which has been skyrocketing due to rising interest rates and indices.
As of yesterday morning, the leading cities that people signed up for are: Be’er Ya’akov with 31,500 where 512 apartments are going to be raffled off; Rishon Lezioyn where 30,500 people entered to win 409; Or Yehuda with 28,500 for 322 apartments and Tel-Aviv carries fourth place with 19,000 entrants for 153 apartments.
The government is committed to raffling off another 20,000 apartments this year, through the Apartment at a Discount Program (“Dira B’Hanacha”). Follow Malchi Mortgages to always be appraised of the latest on the Israeli housing and mortgage market.