For many years, overseas residents focused on a few major Israeli cities when investing in real estate and buying apartments. These familiar destinations included Jerusalem, Netanya, Tel Aviv, Ashdod and Beit Shemesh. But as the year 2025 draws to an end, a new and notable trend has emerged, one that reflects developments over the past year: more overseas buyers are now showing interest in cities and towns that were not previously considered prime targets.
This year, for example, smaller cities have joined the list, including communities in the Sharon region, Hadera, Karmiel, Kiryat Gat, Safed, rural areas along the border with Judea and Samaria, and neighborhoods near Jerusalem, such as Givat Ze’ev, that are outside the capital’s official boundaries. This means overseas buyers are increasingly looking for newly built apartments bought directly from developers. They’re drawn to promotional offers, carefully survey the market, and ultimately choose affordable areas. Until the outbreak of the “Iron Swords” war, most overseas residents flocked to the well-known high-demand cities.
Today, however, the appeal seems to lie more in developers’ incentives than in geographic locations that dominated the market for decades. Intensive marketing efforts by contractors, reaching as far as buyers’ living rooms abroad, are generating growing interest across the Diaspora, and Jewish communities worldwide are no longer hesitant to change course. Another prominent phenomenon this year is "community purchasing". Groups of buyers, often organized around a specific synagogue (primarily in the United States, though not exclusively), are jointly purchasing large numbers of apartments within the same project or neighborhood, to continue their communal life in Israel.
As a result, a new player has emerged in the market: the community advisor. This figure is responsible for locating suitable properties for community members and conducting direct negotiations with developers, tailored to the community’s needs. Alongside this trend, there is also “family purchasing”, in which a single extended family, across generations, buys multiple apartments in the same building or project for its members.
Over the past two years, an apparent rise has been observed in the number of overseas residents purchasing homes in Israel. Estimates suggest this trend will continue well into 2026. Jews who have begun the process of aliyah but have not yet completed it are already taking steps to identify properties in Israel in anticipation of a future purchase. Developers, for their part, are investing significant efforts in outreach to Jewish communities worldwide, and the results of these efforts are increasingly visible on the ground.
The above is for information only and does not constitute an offer to provide a loan.
Written in collaboration with Mizrahi Tefahot.