100K for a shidduch in Israel?????

amother

Seafoam

Wed, Dec 23 2015, 8:37 am

byisrael wrote:

Again I am stating what is going on in my circles.
The couple BUY( don't necessarily live-BUY) in places like haifa, carmiel, afula, acco, krayot, sfat, beer sheva, ofakim, tifrach.... There are Kollels that pay more then the standard kollels in j'lem /mercaz area because they are trying to bring people out.
I rent my 3 bedroom 90 meter apartment in one of these place out for 2,500 a month. I grew up happily with 5 sibling in the same sized apartment.

I beg to differ with you on stating that there is not a housing shortage all over. According to a Mizrahi Tfahot conference I just attended that is the reason that the housing and rental prices have jumped so high over the past 4 years. And that is why Kahalon is in office.

Explain to me how anyone on a single israeli salary and kids can come up with the 30% on a property in any of the areas a listed. I am not referring to j'lem,beitar, rbs...I am referring to out of town.

Yes our parents gave us the money for a down payment. Together with all the costs of buying(lawyer,real estate agent, mortgage broker,tax) it was 25$ for each side. Yes you will have a hard time getting a shidduch in the chariedi world offering less than that. The open minded people are the ones who are willing to buy out of town and do half half. I RBS you can find families who are looking for support as apposed to buying. I don't think that is much less and the boys side usually give nothing.

Yes SOME people make an ok living.
According to Bituach Leumi the average salary is 9,123.
Pretty good right?
Except that the average is positively skewed by the highest earners and according to leading economists we can assume the average is between 4,500-6,500 NIS a month.
5,000 x 36 = 180,000 which is 30% of a 600k apartment and that is assuming that prices stay where they are-and they never have.

I agree with most of your assessment of affordability. I've read, though, that it's not only a matter of shortage- too many new apartments are being bought by investors. This has to do with the national interest rate being 0%, so putting your money in the bank means no interest gained. Kahlon has been working on making real estate cost more in taxes if you don't intend to live there, but he also needs to get Bank Yisrael to give investors a nudge into other markets.

amother

Cerise

Wed, Dec 23 2015, 5:09 pm

I'm chareidi and while I'm not on the scene of couples getting married right now, what byisrael is saying sounds right on target. We, Americans, bought a 3.5 room apt years ago. Our parents surprised us and paid for the whole thing, which was $125k at the time. That was when prices in our locale were considered low. About a decade later when we outgrew it, we sold that apt for more than twice what we bought it from, and bought a larger place, taking the new mortgage upon ourselves.

And yes, salaries are low. We have what is considered a very high income. I don't talk about the numbers to anyone because I know what is normal here and we make more than 3x what my friends make. So by Israeli chareidi standards we are really wealthy, but if you would translate that number into dollars and given the number of members of our family, we'd be officially poor in the US. We live well below our income, by the way, though it does show up in certain quality of life areas.

I have seen young couples do exactly what byisrael described - buy a small apartment somewhere that you can afford, and then rent it out. Prices rise and by the time you are ready to really settle and raise your kids somewhere, you can sell it and buy something that is more of a reasonable size for you in an area you prefer, with a mortgage you can handle. Or you move out of town and live there. A first apartment is an investment, not a for the rest of your life choice.

Tablepoetry

Wed, Dec 23 2015, 5:28 pm

byisrael wrote:

According to Bituach Leumi the average salary is 9,123.
Pretty good right?
Except that the average is positively skewed by the highest earners and according to leading economists we can assume the average is between 4,500-6,500 NIS a month.
5,000 x 36 = 180,000 which is 30% of a 600k apartment and that is assuming that prices stay where they are-and they never have.

The median salary was 6541 NIS last year. The average was a bit over 9000 NIS. The numbers change slightly according to who measured, but that's the range.

Of course it's a low salary. And almost every Israeli I know is dual income; you can't afford to raise a family on that sum alone.

However, I don't think people should get the impression that financially life is so difficult for most here. The numbers above reflect all segments of society. The median includes a very large group of minimum wage earners (the factory workers, the cleaners, etc).

However, one should note that there is a large middle class in Israel which seems to be living just fine. Ultimately most people I know do manage to own their own home/apartment (yes, parents often help with downpayment), to own at least one car, and to live reasonably comfortably.

People should not conflate the 'Israeli charedi standards' mentioned above with general Israeli standards. The charedim do not reflect general standards; first, many are single income families, and second, they have many more children, and children cost money both when raising them and when helping them with their own first home.

Last edited by Tablepoetry on Wed, Dec 23 2015, 5:31 pm; edited 1 time in total

Maya

Wed, Dec 23 2015, 5:28 pm

chocolatecake wrote:

I just heard that in the charaidei world the girls parents need to promise 100k or the girl won't find a shidduch. Israelis, is that really true? Does that include the wedding or is it 100k going straight to the couple? Do the boys parents need to promise anything also? Where on earth do people come up with that cash especially when most are men are learning and they have large families. Am I missing something here......

They get it from rich Americans. They somehow find money to pay for a plane ticket to come over here, and hire local drivers who have "lists" of all the wealthy people in town to whom they can go bang down the door and guilt into handing over big checks.

Don't get me started on this ridiculous, irresponsible, entitled behavior.

shabbatiscoming

Wed, Dec 23 2015, 5:35 pm

Maya wrote:

I agree with you maya that many get the money from going overseas for tzedaka, but definitely not all. So where the heck do they get the money from?

Maya

Wed, Dec 23 2015, 5:45 pm

naturalmom5 wrote:

How much do you give,Maya. And what's youyr address Smile

We once gave too much in a moment of great generosity. That's how we got on a list. Now we're paying the price for it. We're moving soon and keeping our new address a secret. Literally. We're instructing all our current neighbors not to tell where we've moved to, if asked. We're keeping a mailbox at our current address so it's not down on paper.

Nothing in this post is a joke. That's how desperate this situation has made us.

sourstix

Wed, Dec 23 2015, 8:35 pm

what maya said is totally true. I lived ina rather poorer neighborhood and we had pp all night knocking at my door. it was crazy. it just didnt stop. (oh I miss brooklyn anyway)
I have some family members that also came because of that. I didnt give I just dont have. and giving them 10$ isnt going to do the trick. then I learned not to feel bad for someone that really doesnt have to have it.
seiously for a mortgage for a newlywed to have a new home?! whats wrong with renting? thats what all americans do. so why are isrealis intitled to that? I just cant understand it. anyway I give to places like tomchei shabos or to pp that are sick or are being evicted. those are things that cant survive without us. thats called chesed.

amother

Brunette

Wed, Dec 23 2015, 8:54 pm

sourstix wrote:

what maya said is totally true. I lived ina rather poorer neighborhood and we had pp all night knocking at my door. it was crazy. it just didnt stop. (oh I miss brooklyn anyway)
I have some family members that also came because of that. I didnt give I just dont have. and giving them 10$ isnt going to do the trick. then I learned not to feel bad for someone that really doesnt have to have it.
seiously for a mortgage for a newlywed to have a new home?! whats wrong with renting? thats what all americans do. so why are I so ealis intitled to that? I just cant understand it. anyway I give to places like tomchei shabos or to pp that are sick or are being evicted. those are things that cant survive without us. thats called chesed.

I mostly agree with you, but you should be aware that the housing system in Israel is VERY different from America and you can't compare. In America, you rent until you can buy. In Israel, there is not as much of a rental market, most people buy and many people are helped by their parents to buy, even secular (you need a much higher percentage of a down payment to be considered for a mortgage than in America). Of course no one is entitled to anything, and people need to figure things out for themselves rather than schnorr, but just be aware that you can't expect them to do it "like America" because it's a totally different system.

amother

Saddlebrown

Wed, Dec 23 2015, 9:22 pm

I have a sibling in Israel with a number of children and he will most likely be a) collecting from Americans and b) my parents will be giving him large (think tens of thousands per child) amounts of $ for each wedding he makes. My parents feel guilt that they "allowed" him to get into this situation.

As for the rest of us. . . I guess I should go post on the other thread going on now, about the parents giving way more to the sibling who made the decision to live in Israel. . .

shabbatiscoming

Thu, Dec 24 2015, 12:47 am

dancingqueen wrote:

So there are really no apartments for rent in Israel?

there are, there are, there are. I think people are talking about heavily anglo charedi areas that get filled up very quickly. I have friends who have no problem finding apartments, not charedi couples. There are so many different places to live.
And no, not everyone buys. Many many many many many people rent, their entire lives, here in israel. dont think its not like that.

shabbatiscoming

Thu, Dec 24 2015, 12:49 am

amother wrote:

this may all be true, but that does not mean that they should go begging from other people. They have to go out and find work. Not beg from others to pay for their lives.

amother

Indigo

Thu, Dec 24 2015, 1:49 am

The giving money for a down payment is the same idea as parents helping out for the first few years in kollel in america.
Instead of my parent's giving us $1000 a month for 5 years, they gave us $50,000 which we put in a down payment on a apartment in an out of town city. We rent it out which helps us pay for our rent .
In E"Y there are rental's but it's very difficult to find and there a lot of expenses and red tape with constantly moving . Especially on a tight budget. More so than in America.
Also proportionally the rent can take up a full time salary (for example renting a 2 bedroom in ramat eshkol costs me 4500 nis a month which is what I make working full time)

luppamom

Thu, Dec 24 2015, 2:15 am

In different areas it's easier or harder to find rentals. In my area, it's hard. Most people buy and live in what they bought. (Rent here is not high enough that they would be able to rent out what they own and rent somewhere else.)

We personally cannot afford to buy and even if we could, we're not sure we want to buy in our particular area, so we rent. Now, because there are not so many rentals, we basically had to take what was the best from a very small pool of rentals. In our case, we ended up with something bigger than we need. We are really hoping to stay here, at least for the next few yrs., so hopefully it was a good choice. So, yes a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment would fit my family and save me maybe 200-300 shekel a month, but I didn't see any that size that made sense.

Back to the original topic, if parents are going to give X amount of money, it really makes more sense to put it into a tangible asset that the couple could use or rent out especially considering prices are going up. The system in America amongst some of the yeshivish in Kollel, when it's X amount of money for X amount of yrs. makes much less sense (to me). Except maybe it's easier for some people not to have to pay one lump sum.

Not saying I understand how anyone can afford this.

byisrael

Thu, Dec 24 2015, 2:53 am

Both my parents work full time in and their combined income is over 30,000 NIS per month. My parents do not live in an anglo bubble.
All their saving were used helping my brother who is special needs get the specialized private care that our wonderful state of israel does not subsidize at all, so that he now is a productive, functioning member of society.
The reality of the shidduch system is that without giving the kind of money it is almost impossible to get a shidduch.
So my father got off his high horse and asked our family a friends and people who he has done a TREMANDOUS for both financially (when we lived in the states and were in a better position) and helping support them thru other difficulties ( he had a community position and my parent went way beyond the call off duty), and asked them to help him. No he did not go knocking on peoples doors. And I don't think that makes him a schnorrer, thats how it is in a community-sometimes your in a position to give and sometimes you need to take.
If you don't want to give DON'T! But don't make us all into greedy, entitled, selfish people. I guess according to you I shouldn't have got married. Good thing I didn't ask you first.

amother

Slategray

Thu, Dec 24 2015, 2:57 am

amother wrote:

Yet couples buy apartments and rent them out while they rent where they want to live. So there are rentals available. What they want is not a place to live but a real estate investment.