TEL AVIV - Israel has a source of commercial real estate opportunities like nowhere else in the world, former income tax commissioner Yair Rabinowitz said at a real estate conference Wednesday.
Rabinowitz, who headed the tax reform panel in 2003 said Israelis act like herds.
“For the last few years everyone has wanted to purchase property overseas in places such as Toronto, while the real opportunities are here in Israel,” he said.
Rabinowitz noted that a group of investors operating in Israel for less than 10 years currently holds high-yield real estate property such as stores, malls and commercial centers totaling NIS billion (about USD 222 million). He said the return on each asset doesn’t fall below 10 percent.
According to Rabinowitz, however, there is an excess supply of office space that would suffice for the next 5 years. The yield for residential real estate is also low and can reach 5 percent at the most.
“A fortune has been transferred overseas in the past few years and if these funds had been invested in real estate in Israel we would have prospered," he said.
He added that it is a well-known fact that it is more financially feasible for a company to maintain existing customers rather than to find new ones.
“That’s how Israeli investors aboard should be viewed – instead of granting benefits to external investors benefits should first be granted to Israeli investors who would come back here to invest,” he said.
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