Ephraim Shahmoon bought no fewer than nine apartments in Alfred Akirov's TreeTop Towers project in Tel Aviv. That was three years ago. Lately Shahmoon's signed on to buy two more flats in Yoo Towers, being built by the Habasgroup. Altogether, the English billionaire has spent NIS 60 million on these properties.

Nor is Shahmoon the only one collecting luxury housing in Israel. Realtors and developers report that it's become a trend.

"In general, there isn't a single luxury housing project in Tel Aviv, and in the city's northern areas, that doesn't feature collectors like that," says Amir Shaltiel, manager of Eldar Project Marketing.

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Some of the collectors are household names. Take billionaire heiress Shari Arison, who among other things owns the controlling interests in Israel's biggest bank, Hapoalim, and in the development company Property & Building. She lives in an apartment in Bavli, Tel Aviv; bought an estate in the moshav Bnei Zion; and half a year ago bought a penthouse in Gindi Holdings' "G" project in Tel Aviv.

Insurer Shuki Madanes negotiated to buy an apartment in "G" and has signed up to buy a flat in the Arsuf project by the sea, north of Herzliya. Arsuf has evidently been popular over the ages, by the way: It also sports the ruins of a Crusader castle.

Entertainer Eli Yatzpan is a known apartment collector. A decade ago he bought an apartment in Hamashtela, in North Tel Aviv, he owns another one in the Manhattan Project in Park Tzameret, Tel Aviv, and rumor has it that he owns another apartment on nearby Pinkas Street.

Builder Alfred Akirov owns duplex apartments in several of his own projects, the Opera Tower on the Tel Aviv shoreline and in TreeTop Towers too. Diamond baron Benny Steinmetz owns a house in Arsuf and a double penthouse in Yoo.

And these are just a few. Industry sources relate that there are hundreds of housing collectors.

Most share a common characteristic: Israel is not their primary place of residence. The Tel Aviv branch of Anglo-Saxon recently handled the case of a heavy collector, a Russian multi-millionaire, who bought three apartments in the luxury Beeri-Nahardea project in Tel Aviv. He then sopped up five houses in Herzliya Pituah, paying $4-5 million per home.

Another foreign resident, who's involved in a building project in Tel Aviv, also bought a luxury apartment in another project entirely that overlooks the sea in Netanya. A French Jew recently bought six flats for $8 million in the Sea Waves complex in Ashdod, which is being built by Avisror.

The collectors' favorites are apartments with a sea view. "You can find them in droves at the Ashdod Marina, and in Ir Yamim in Netanya, both of which have neighborhoods on the beach that aren't as expensive as in Tel Aviv," says Amos Davosh, marketing manager for developer Y.H. Dimri.

The weird thing is that these collectors, Israeli and otherwise, don't even tend to rent their multiple holdings out, which would help them regain their investment. Most prefer to simply lock them up, deposit them with asset management companies and let them sit. "They aren't looking for income on these apartments. The return rate on such properties is pretty low, anyway," says Shaltiel. "Anybody wanting to buy a flat and lease it out would buy in Tel Aviv's old north, or split the flat into two."

So why do they need so many apartments? Realtors suggest several reasons, a main one among foreigners being a desire to bring the family together. "Parents and grandparents want to gather the expanded family around them, so they buy several flats in the same neighborhood or even the same building," says Yoram Avisror, marketing manager at Avisror.

The Frenchman who bought all those flats in Avisror's project in Ashdod started with three. One was intended for himself and his wife, and the other two for their daughters. A year later he bought three more in other projects, for other of his children.

Wealthy and Orthodox Jews who buy in Jerusalem generally have the same reason: to assure the proximity of family. Some buy holiday homes.

But then there are the cases of the collectors from abroad whose rationale is, "Why not," says Davosh. They don't spell it out, but often, underneath the surface, a lot of foreign Jews are worried about anti-Semitism. "They fear that one day they'll be forced to move to Israel." And if they can afford to, they buy for the kids, too.

As for the super-rich, foreign and Israeli alike, the rationale is something entirely different, says Kfar Zohar of Anglo-Saxon. They buy for investment purposes. The prices of luxury homes in Israel have soared in recent years, rising by tens of percent. "They buy in the name of diversifying their investments."

As for the those in the capital stratosphere, "One can't imagine the sheer power of their wealth, the amount of money they have," says Amos Glazer, manager of Anglo-Saxon Tel Aviv. "One bought a villa in Caesarea, noticed it was far from Tel Aviv and bought an apartment in Tel Aviv too. Then he heard the trend was to buy in Herzliya Pituah so he bought there too. He didn't bother to sell as he went along. It's peanuts for him."