Israelis love to own their homes. "Over 72 percent of Israelis own their homes, one of the highest homeowner rates in the world," is how a new book in English by attorney Haim Katz, "Buying Your Home in Israel," begins. He notes that this rate compares with 68 percent in the United States, 69 percent in Britain and 54 percent in France. Each year, Israeli contractors invest about NIS 36 billion in construction, of which about two-thirds is earmarked for housing, Katz adds.

Israel's construction industry contributes more than 12 percent of the gross domestic product and employs hundreds of thousands of people, no mean feat in a nation of 7.2 million. These include "between 5,000 to 8,000 real estate agents, approximately 8,000 architects and about 9,000 registered contractors," Katz says in his book, which can be downloaded free from www.buyingyourhomeinisrael.com. In a blurb at the start of the book, which was published by B'nei B'rith, Minister Meir Sheetrit calls it "a guide for the perplexed."

Katz says that he fields calls from people who want to buy housing but are afraid that the housing sector will implode, or that their contractor will collapse. He understands their fears: He has been working here for decades, but remembers moving to Israel from England 25 years ago, entering a strange new world with an unfamiliar language and culture. One major difficulty for foreign buyers is that they are not here, he says. "Most of their knowledge about the [collapse of construction giant] Heftsiba is from the media, and what they see - that the CEO fled and was arrested, that people squatted in unfinished apartments - is very worrying for them."