A Roof Overhead

I'm currently on the flat hunt in Tel Aviv and amazingly, the market is tight. Not San Francisco dot-com era, "I'll give you stock options on top of the security deposit" tight. More like "We want three months rent up front, three guarantors, several thou in security deposits and nope, nothing we can do about the gaping ceiling hole."

I looked at four places yesterday. And four the day before. And four the day before that day. Street names, telephone numbers and contacts are beginning to melt together as I bike, run, walk and bus around the city like mad. Some places are hot. Others are over-priced dreck.

Wasn't there just a wee war here over the summer? And don't those types of events generally drive housing rates towards the lower end of the scale?

Oh right but also over the summer hordes of French Jewish nationals fled to Holy Land Central (HLC) looking to escape religious persecution (or so the rumor goes). They bought property with "kicks the shekel's derriere any day" Euros, drove availability into scarcity and sent market rates sailing.

During the dot-com boom we used to half-joke: Can't there be a small earthquake? No one gets hurt or killed but like maybe 4-5 on the Richter so that it does enough damage to scare away the opportunists ..??

You know where I'm going on this one. Wink wink.