Israel stars in the opening quintet of real estate investors' source countries • One-third of US apartments are for rent • "The rental market will double in the coming years as more developers build for rent"

• US real estate // Photo: AP

Israeli citizens invested $ 2.4 billion in real estate in the US last year (September 2019-2018), the fifth highest among all foreign real estate investors in America.

China leads the list, with the first nine months of 2019 investing in the Asian giant country selling more commercial real estate in the US than it had for the first time since 2012. In the third quarter of last year, Chinese sold US real estate worth $ 1 billion.

These figures will be presented tomorrow as part of the 11th Annual Israel-US Real Estate Investment Conference in Tel Aviv, attended by senior executives from the world and Israeli real estate investors.

One of the participants in the conference will be Ze'ev Guretz, an American Jew from the Goldstone and Storrs law firm specializing in real estate issues. Gurz expressed cautious optimism in a conversation with Israel Today. "The number of Israelis investing in US real estate is increasing every year, and I estimate that Will continue to rise - despite global and political uncertainty, "explains Guretz," Israelis were among the first foreign populations to re-trust the US real estate market after the great crisis of 2008. "

Gwartz has allowed potential investors to be aware of the dramatic changes in the US real estate market, especially in the demand area. New York City, the most coveted investment target for Israelis and other real estate investors in the world, has experienced a dramatic fall in prices over the past year: a 25% drop in single-family homes or Complexes and 15% in luxury apartments. "There's a trend of moving into the market for rented apartments," explains Guretz. "Today, the younger generation would rather live in rented apartments than buy an apartment and for a much longer period of time than their parents."

"Rental prices in the sky"

Currently, there are 16 million rental properties in the United States, with about one-third of all properties available for rent in the country. "We expect in the next decade to double as more and more entrepreneurs build directly for rent, rather than purchase. Rental prices in the sky, which is why many authorities impose "affordable housing" on 30-20 percent of projects. "