Subscribe to Print Edition | Thu., October 23, 2008 Tishrei 24, 5769 | | Israel Time: 02:06 (EST+7) web haaretz.com   Back to Homepage Haaretz Toolbar Diplomacy Defense Jewish World Opinion National Print Edition Car Rental Books Haaretz Magazine Business Real Estate Easy Start Travel Week's End Anglo File

Banks are blocking housing sales, claim property firms By Guy Liberman Tags: Real Estate, Israel Marketing managers at Israel's real estate companies claim they aren't feeling the pain. "We've been on alert because of the global financial crisis for the last month and a half, but so far the crisis hasn't arrived," says Haim Karadi, marketing manager at Prashkovsky Investments & Construction. Demand and sales haven't changed, he claimed at a press conference convened by 20 marketing managers of Israeli property companies earlier this week. However, Karadi said, Prashovsky is definitely feeling the pain in Romania, where the real estate market has collapsed. The marketing veeps met with the press in the hope of assuaging concern about Israel's real estate sector, given the grim forecasts about the property market's near-term future as the world financial markets seize up. All 20 declared their confidence that the local market wouldn't be affected by the crisis. If there's a problem, they declared, it's at the mortgage banks, which are dragging their feet on approving new loans. Avi Furman, marketing VP at Azorim, claimed that people aren't worried about real estate companies going under, they're worried about banks turning into piles of rubble. "I view the situation today as an opportunity," he added. "People want to put their money not into the banks, but rather into apartments." Furman did admit, however, that traffic at the companies' sales points has dwindled, but blames it on the holidays, not on fear. Advertisement U. Dori's marketing chief, Amit Yulevitch, does expect the uptrend in housing prices to stop. "I don't think we're isolated from the world," he said. "I don't think prices are going to rise." Prices will be kept from falling by supply, he added. B. Yair Building Corporation's marketing manager, Nadav Lisovsky, said that visitor traffic at his company's sales offices has also slowed, and he got specific on the banks. "There are problems with mortgages," he said. "From what customers tell us we see that the banks' answers are slower than usual. Good clients don't get responses. That's the bottleneck." But he hastened to add that the problem is mainly in the periphery. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Hitting Hezbollah Iraqi site reports Nasrallah was poisoned last week and Iranian doctors saved him. Terror as support Al-Qaida-linked Web site supports McCain for president by means of welcoming terror.   1.   real estate 00:57  |  ivan 23/10/08

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