How much is this going to cost me?

Additional costs of purchasing real estate in Israel

When considering such a life changing decision like buying a home or a home away from home in the holy city of Jerusalem, one must be aware of all the associated costs.

As usual at Jerusalem Estates we are here to guide and advise.

Here are the other costs other than purchase price that we believe are significant enough that they should be accounted for when making a purchase:

1) TAX, perhaps the least popular word in the English language, comes in at number one; here we are dealing with purchase tax only or Mas Rechisha as it is locally called.

Whilst the rates for an Israeli resident purchasing his only property has a progressive rate depeding on value of the transaction, a foreign resident (or an Israeli pruchasing a second home pay a flat rate of 8% and 10% on any part of the purchase abouve 6,055,070 NIS which is currently just over 1.8 million USD.

In fact for those of you considering making aliyah, tax is lower on the first property than the regular Israeli resident rate, for specifics of how to take advantage of this, even post purchase please be in touch.

2) Brokers Fees. In Israel both buyers and sellers of real estate will pay a broker, usually not the same one (more on that in a later edition). The standard fee charged is 2% plus VAT (currently 18%). There are some brokers who are known to charge more to foreign buyers if they are doing a lot more work to assist them but here at Jerusalem Estates we are happy to help with whatever you want for the standard rate.

3) Lawyers Fees.

These generally are 0.50 percent plus VAT.

There may be some lawyers who charge lower but in our experience given the low proportional cost of legal representation, it is worth paying the standard rate for someone who really knows what they are doing and it focused on making sure everything is as it should be.

Here to we are ready and waiting to refer an English speaking Israel lawyer to help you, one who I have personally used on a number of occasions over the years. He is both extremely competent and trustworthy.