105 new flats to be built in Yavne
Two new projects to be constructed in city's green neighborhood, which is slated to include some 3,000 housing units. Real estate agency says prices in city up 30% in past 18 months
Three new nine-floor apartment buildings are expected to be built in the central city of Yavne. The buildings will include a total of 105 flats and will be part of the city's green neighborhood, which is expected to include 3,000 housing units.
Yavne's local committee for planning and construction approved the construction of the three buildings in its recent meeting. The Ayush Refael Ltd. company of Ashdod will build two buildings with 70 housing units, and the C Refael Projects Ltd. of Beersheba is slated to build another apartment building with 35 housing units.
City Engineer David Shitrit, who presented the plans to the committee, noted that "the Ayush Refael construction includes an underground parking for about 60% of the required parking spaces and about 40% upper parking spaces according to a standard of 1.5 parking spots per housing unit.
"The C Refael Project's apartment building will include an underground parking for about 50% of the required parking spots and 50% upper parking places."
The city engineer added that the plan's entrepreneurs were required to meet demands set by the municipality, including pneumatic garbage collection and receiving a green stamp of approval from the Standards Institution of Israel.
Yavne's green neighborhood, located in the city's south, spreads across some 210 acres. Some 550 apartments are currently being built in the compound by the Peretz Bonei Hanegev, Shimon Zarfati and Buskila Brothers companies.
Esti Lotan, a franchiser for the RE/MAX real estate agency in the city says the prices of apartments in the new neighborhood range between NIS 1 million (about $260,000) for four-room apartments, NIS 1.3 million ($340,000) for five-room apartments and up to NIS 2 million ($530,000) for apartments on the top floors.
Lotan adds that in the past 18 months Yavne has experienced a significant price hike as have many other cities across the country. "The prices of apartments and houses in the city have gone up by some 30%," Lotan says. "The new neighborhood gives property owners in the city a legitimacy to raise prices."
Lotan provides two examples of the price hike: "A 3-room apartment measuring about 90 square meters (969 square feet) in size was sold in 2008 for about NIS 700,000 ($184,900). Today this apartment is for sale for NIS 870,000 ($229,825). A private house in the military neighborhood, which is about 20 years old, measuring 150 square meters built on a land of 400 square meters (4,305 square feet) was just sold for NIS 1.8 million ($480,000), while a similar asset was sold about a year and a half ago for NIS 1.2 million ($320,000)."
