With the uncertainty of the world economies and the massive international explosion of antisemitism, many more Jews in the Diaspora are looking toward Israel, if not for their immediate future, then their children’s future. While there is no shortage of local Jew-hatred in the Holy Land combined with some very well-armed vicious neighbors, we can take solace in the fact that after everything, Israel is still standing and still growing in Jewish population, technology, biotech and more.
Many years before the Holocaust, Jews began buying back land in Eretz Yisrael. After all, we pray facing Jerusalem and after almost 2,000 years of exile and experiencing such benefits as crusades, inquisitions, pogroms, etc., many began to invest in the future settlement in the land of Israel by purchasing increasing amounts of it. Over 100 years ago, land in Israel was as they say, dirt cheap.
Decades later, even after the establishment of the state of Israel, land in many areas of the country could be purchased relatively inexpensively. We say relatively because it was still very affordable but through the years it did consistently rise in value.
As Israel’s population keeps growing, so does the demand for land. Today, middle-class Israelis purchase privately owned land in Israel in ever growing amounts. They have learned that even the most faraway field land that was 30,000 shekels per dunam (about a 1/4 acre) 12 years ago, is most likely 90,000 shekels today.
We did a sale last year of agricultural land in Yasod HaMa’ala in the Upper Galilee, a bit north of Rosh Pina. What was purchased 20 years earlier for 8,700 per dunam sold for nine times more at 80,000 per dunam, with no realistic chance of near term rezoning to residential. In the Lower Galilee village of Yavniel we’ve purchased lands at 50,000 shekels per dunam as recently as five years ago that have now sold for a whopping 150,000 per dunam.
Of course, the big game in Israel is called “speculative land.” These are agriculturally zoned lands that because of their location have a good chance of future rezoning. Rezoning of land in Israel produces the greatest price appreciation. Investors of these lands have made returns of 10, 20 and even 40 times their original investments.
Currently, we’re marketing an area called Meir Shefiya. Meir Shefiya was a growing Jewish village (moshava) from 1891-1945 when it was destroyed by hostile Arabs. After the founding of the state of Israel 1n 1948, the government established a youth village school that is still functioning today in part of this area. Most of the area is currently agricultural. There are several religious and nationalist investors who have purchased large areas of Meir Shefiya with the stated intention of reestablishing a Jewish community there. Their goal is to draw up professional plans and then petition the courts while lobbying religious and nationalist politicians to support the rezoning project.
Will Meir Shefiya be rezoned in the next few years? I can’t say. However, I can say that at the current reasonable prices and all the effort to rezone that will soon be revealed, there’s a good chance of healthy price appreciation in the interim. On the conservative side, these lands rarely decline in value and if so, only for very short periods of time, usually during conflicts, before they continue their steady rise to new price highs.
We sold out Parcel 1 (27.5 dunam) in Shefiya recently and we’ve sold out approximately 50% of Parcel 2 (18 dunam) to date. While there is a chance we might acquire options to market an additional 50 dunam in Shefiya, it is not certain. At least the second half of Parcel 2 is still available for a limited time. To own your own piece of private land in Israel is not just a financial investment. It’s an investment in your children’s and grandchildren’s future, and the future of the Jewish people in our one and only homeland. So why not buy a piece of Israel?
Joel Yosef Busner is the director of Buy a Piece of Israel. www.buyapieceofisrael.com.
