Tel Aviv Property Index · Supply

84,280 new apartments nobody has bought

Housing supply in Israel is usually discussed as a shortage. At the end of June 2026 there were 84,280 unsold new apartments, twenty-six months of supply at the current rate of sale, with another 211,710 homes still under construction behind them. Both things are true at once, and the second is what makes the first a problem.

84,280unsold new flats, 30 June 2026
26 monthsof supply at the current rate
211,710homes under construction
3.4 yearsof output sitting in the pipeline

The pipeline, end to end

Permits become starts, starts become completions, and completions become either a sale or a flat on a developer’s books. Permits ran at 81,560 units in the twelve months to September 2025, up 10.9% on the year before. Starts hit a record 81,020 in that same window, up 31.5%, and were still running at 76,470 in the twelve months to March 2026.

The tall column in the middle is the one that matters. 211,710 homes were under active construction at the end of March 2026. At the current completion rate of 62,140 a year, that is roughly three and a half years of output already committed and not yet delivered.

Figure 1 — the residential pipeline, latest published windows

From a permit to a flat nobody has bought Units at each stage of the residential pipeline 81,560 Permits Oct 24 – Sep 25 76,470 Starts Apr 25 – Mar 26 211,710 Under construction stock, end Mar 26 62,140 Completions Apr 25 – Mar 26 84,280 Unsold stock, 30 Jun 26 Two of these are stocks and three are flows. Read it as a route, not as five comparable bars. 211,710 homes under construction is 3.4 years of output at the current rate of completion.

Permits and starts are annual flows; homes under construction and unsold stock are levels at a date. The columns are a route through the system, not five comparable quantities.

Filling faster than it empties

In the twelve months to March 2026 Israel started 76,470 homes and completed 62,140 — a gap of 14,330, or 23%. Completions are recovering: 58,800 in 2023, down to 53,400 in 2024, back up to 62,140 in the latest twelve months. But while starts run ahead of completions the pipeline keeps growing and average build times stay long.

Figure 2 — starts against completions, twelve months to March 2026

Israel started 14,330 more homes than it finished Twelve months to March 2026 Starts Apr 2025 – Mar 2026 76,470 Completions same twelve months 62,140 The gap started but not finished 14,330 Starts ran 23% ahead of completions, so the pipeline is still filling faster than it empties. That is why record construction has not yet turned into keys in hands.

Building well past what the market is buying

Around 8,800 new apartments sold in the third quarter of 2025, subsidised sales included, against starts running at roughly twenty thousand a quarter. That is close to 1,600 apartments a month begun beyond what the market is absorbing.

It is not spread evenly. In the Tel Aviv district alone, 13,737 new apartments intended for sale were started in twelve months, of which only around 560 were under a government subsidised programme. The rest have to find a buyer at the market price.

Figure 3 — unsold new apartments by city, June 2026

Where the unsold stock actually sits Unsold new apartments by city, 30 June 2026 Jerusalem 10,320 Tel Aviv–Yafo 9,550 Lod 3,050 Kiryat Gat 2,610 Yehud 1,810 Be'er Ya'akov 1,570 Ramat HaSharon 1,510 Ra'anana 1,500 9,550 unsold new flats in Tel Aviv–Yafo alone. Over half the national overhang sits in the Tel Aviv and Central districts.

It has stopped growing

The stock stood at 86,090 at the end of 2025, 85,312 in March and 84,280 at the end of June, with months of supply falling from 29.2 to 26. Three consecutive falls is the first genuine improvement in two years.

One quarter is not a trend. The improvement came from an unusually strong new-build sales quarter that was itself partly a transfer of demand out of the second-hand market, and 211,710 homes are still coming down the pipe behind it.

Figure 4 — unsold new apartments over time

The overhang, and where it turned Unsold new apartments nationally, drawn from zero so the fall reads at its true size December 2025 29.2 months of supply 86,090 March 2026 28.9 months 85,312 June 2026 26.0 months 84,280 The stock is down 2.1% in six months. Months of supply are down far more, from 29.2 to 26. Absorption improved more than the stock did, and one strong quarter is not a trend.

What to do with it

Negotiating power sits where the stock sits

  • Buy where the overhang is. 9,550 unsold units in Tel Aviv-Yafo is the most negotiable fact in the city.
  • Ask how many are left in the block. A scheme with four units unsold behaves completely differently from one with forty.
  • Months of supply beats the headline count. Stock only matters relative to how fast it is clearing. Twenty-six months is roughly double what a balanced market carries.
  • Remember what is behind it. 211,710 homes under construction is three and a half years of completions still to arrive.
  • Watch the second-hand seller. They compete with a developer who can offer financing terms they cannot match.

Method

Permits, starts, completions, homes under construction and unsold stock are all published by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Each series is stated with its own window on the chart, because CBS publishes them on different reporting cycles and forcing them onto one window would mean inventing numbers.

The pipeline chart deliberately mixes flows and levels and labels which is which. Percentage steps between the columns are not drawn, because a difference between an annual flow and a stock is arithmetic that means nothing.

CBS building permits, starts, completions and dwellings under construction releases, October 2024–September 2025 and April 2025–March 2026 windows; CBS unsold new dwellings and months of supply, December 2025, March 2026 and June 2026; CBS dwelling transactions release. Tel Aviv Property Index. Figures are recomputed on each data release; the date above each chart is the vintage shown. Provisional Tax Authority reporting is revised for several months after a quarter closes, so the two most recent periods in any series will move. This page is market information, not advice on any particular property or transaction.