Tel Aviv Buyer Scenario Planner: Compare Two Purchases

This planner compares two Tel Aviv purchases side by side: cash due at closing including purchase tax and fees, the monthly payment on a simplified fixed-rate loan, the balance left at your horizon, and rate and price sensitivity. In the preset, a non-resident buying at ₪4,850,000 with half down needs ₪2,992,690 at closing.

The planner works with any budget; for the apartments actually coming onto the market, the Monday sample with exact asking prices is on the subscribe page.

What this planner does — and does not

It answers four questions for two scenarios at once: how much cash you must bring to closing, what the mortgage costs in interest versus what it repays in principal, what you still owe when you expect to sell or refinance, and how much those figures move if the rate or the price changes. It keeps the cash you pay once at closing separate from the costs of owning the apartment month by month, and it never counts the loan as cash or the down payment as a mortgage payment.

It does not forecast prices or rents, estimate a return, recommend a neighborhood, quote a mortgage rate, judge whether a bank would lend to you, or work out which purchase-tax category you fall into. Every input is labelled:

• Verified fact — law or official data, sourced below
• Your assumption — a choice only you can make
• Illustrative placeholder — a stand-in; replace it with your quote

Edit the two scenarios

Both scenarios start from presets: Scenario A uses the July 2026 median tracked asking price (₪4,850,000, n = 1,037 tracked active listings — a snapshot of asking prices, not of completed sales) with 50% down; Scenario B is an illustrative lower budget of ₪3,500,000 with 70% down. Change any field and the tables below update.

Worked example: the two presets

Scenario A buys at ₪4,850,000 — the July 2026 median tracked asking price across n = 1,037 tracked active listings — with ₪2,425,000 down. As a non-resident or additional-home buyer it pays ₪388,000 purchase tax, and with illustrative lawyer and broker fees plus VAT and ₪8,000 of other costs it needs ₪2,992,690 at closing. The ₪2,425,000 loan at 4.62% over 25 years costs ₪13,645 a month; after 10 years it has paid ₪981,768 of interest and still owes ₪1,769,411.

Scenario B is ₪1,350,000 cheaper at ₪3,500,000, but because it puts ₪2,450,000 (70%) down, its cash at closing — ₪2,861,900 — is only ₪130,790 lower. The payoff comes later: its ₪1,050,000 loan costs ₪5,908 a month, ₪7,737 less than Scenario A, and ₪556,673 less interest over the same 10 years. A larger down payment converts monthly interest into equity on day one; it does not reduce the purchase tax, which depends on the price and your category only.

How the planner calculates

Loan. The loan is the price minus your down payment. The monthly payment is a standard annuity (the Shpitzer schedule Israeli banks use by default): with monthly rate r = annual rate ÷ 12 and n = term × 12 months, payment = loan × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)⁻ⁿ), or loan ÷ n at 0%. Each month's interest is the outstanding balance × r and the rest of the payment repays principal; the last month repays whatever is left, so the balance ends at exactly zero.

Purchase tax. Each band of the schedule you select taxes only the slice of the price inside that band (marginal brackets). For an oleh scenario priced above the relief cap of ₪20,183,565, the planner shows purchase tax and every total that depends on it as "—" rather than guessing which standard schedule applies.

Fees. Lawyer fee and broker commission are percentages of the price, with 18% VAT added once to each. Other closing costs are taken as entered. Ownership costs are your monthly figures × 12 × the holding period, with no indexation.

Rounding. The engine works in exact (unrounded) shekels. The tables round each line item to whole shekels and build every total by adding the rounded lines, so every table adds up; percentages show one decimal. In the yearly schedule each year's interest and principal are rounded and the balance is the previous balance minus that principal, with the final year closing the balance to zero — so principal repaid plus the balance equals the loan exactly. Currency conversions are rounded to whole dollars, euros or pounds and are indicative.

Rate context. The Bank of Israel policy rate is 3.25% (since 3 September 2026). The preset rate of 4.62% is the Bank of Israel average on new unlinked fixed-rate housing loans for August 2026 — a reference point, not an offer.

What the simplified loan model leaves out

A real Israeli mortgage is usually split across two to four tracks and, under Bank of Israel Directive 329, at least one-third of it must be at a fixed rate. This planner models a single fixed, unlinked track. It leaves out:

• CPI-linked tracks (fixed or variable), whose balance rises with inflation;
• prime and other variable-rate tracks, and the mixed-track structure itself;
• early-repayment fees, which can be large on a fixed-rate track when market rates have fallen;
• bank file and arrangement fees, unless you include them in "other closing costs";
• the life and structure insurance lenders require, beyond what you enter as insurance;
• grace periods, bullet or balloon loans, and developer financing on new builds;
• exchange-rate movements on income earned in another currency.

How the tracks work, and how banks price them, is covered in how Israeli mortgages work and, for buyers living abroad, mortgages for non-residents.

Purchase-tax categories and what we do not infer

The planner offers three purchase-tax schedules. The rates are verified law; which one applies to you is your selection — the planner never infers it from nationality, passport or anything else you enter.

• Residency is not citizenship. The single-home schedules turn on Israeli tax residency; the Bank of Israel loan-to-value ceilings turn on citizenship. An Israeli citizen living abroad can be a non-resident for purchase tax yet an Israeli citizen for the bank, and the reverse can also happen. See tax residency and center of life.
• The 8%/10% schedule is temporary. It is set by a temporary provision due to expire 31 December 2026. Re-verify it before you rely on these figures.
• Loan-to-value figures are ceilings, not approvals. The 75% and 50% figures are Bank of Israel maximums by citizenship; the bank still decides on appraisal, income and documents.
• "Single home" and oleh status have statutory conditions the planner does not check — including the treatment of small shares in another home, replacement-home sale deadlines, the oleh window (one year before to seven years after aliyah) and the older oleh track for aliyah before 15 August 2024. See oleh purchase-tax benefits.
• One buyer is assumed. Joint purchases where only one buyer qualifies can change the result.

The single-home and oleh brackets are frozen until 15 January 2028. Cross-check any purchase-tax figure with the Israel Tax Authority's official purchase-tax simulator; the full schedules and worked examples are in purchase tax for foreign buyers.

Sources and assumptions

Every verified figure in the planner traces to one of these sources. Each was retrieved on the date shown; the effective date is when the figure took effect.

Frequently asked questions

Where this fits in the buying guide

Each line of the planner has its own guide. Purchase tax is set out in purchase tax for foreign buyers, with the oleh rates in oleh purchase-tax benefits and the residency test in tax residency and center of life. The loan side is in how Israeli mortgages work and mortgages for non-residents. Closing costs are in lawyers' fees and costs and broker commission; running costs in arnona, vaad bayit and home insurance. For the bigger price-versus-income question, see is Tel Aviv worth buying.