6,666 housing units were successfully marketed in February and March 2025 in Sde Dov, which is probably the most prestigious “piece of land” in all of Israel today. Every new development in the north Tel Aviv neighborhood attracts great interest and this week Israeli real estate company Gindi Holdings launched its Vogue housing project in Sde Dov, with prices of NIS 49,000 per square meter.
This is considerably lower than prices being asked for in other residential projects in Sde Dov. Average prices per square meter of housing in the neighborhood have typically exceeded the NIS 70,000 mark, reaching an average of NIS 80,000 per square meter, and in some cases even NIS 100,000 per square meter or more.
Yigal Dimri, one of the owners of the YH Dimri Construction & Development (TASE: DIMRI), which owns land in the district, speculated when the latest tenders in Sde Dov closed that prices there could reach NIS 150,000 per square meter in a decade or two. So how is it that Gindi “allows itself” to offer much lower prices, in a project located just north of Dimri’s project? Globes with some comments on the move that has become the talk of the town.
Gindi’s explanation: Planning and timing
Gindi Holdings won two lots in the land tenders in the central section of Sde Dov, on which it can build 708 housing units. The company plans building a 44-floor tower, three 20-floor towers and three nine-floor buildings.
Gindi Holdings says planning the project began even before winning the contract, which saved time and has allowed the company to start marketing the apartments and start moving forward on building permit applications. The cost of the planning, according to the company, is negligible: only a few hundred thousand shekels that would have been “washed down the drain” if the company had not won.
In a period when interest rates are relatively high, significant savings in the project’s progress times could, on the face of it, translate into a lot of money in the future – tens of millions of shekels or more – if Gindi does indeed manage to complete construction ahead of everyone else.
Another explanation for the company’s ability to set a low initial price for the project relates to Gindi’s bids in the February tenders. The company won both bids even though it did not offer the highest bid, due to the tender guidelines from the Israel Land Authority. Gindi’s two bids were NIS 177 million lower than the highest bids. Gindi’s bids reflect an average price of about NIS 1.75 million for land per apartment, including development expenses, compared with an average of NIS 2.9 million for land per apartment in the Sde Dov tender four years ago in August 2021.
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Israel Land Authority (ILA) CEO Yanki Kvint, said after the tenders in February that land prices should decline. He said, “After we flooded the market with land in recent years and after we released land for 9,000 housing units in a short time in Sde Dov alone in Tel Aviv (including the land that was marketed in 2021 and 2022), we are not surprised by the published prices. “A price drop in Sde Dov could create a domino effect throughout the country.”
Prices will certainly arise and the time to occupancy is far off
As with any marketing initiative, it is important to dwell on the small details. The location of Gindi’s plots, which, despite the open sea view now, will in the future have quite a few towers built to the west of them, blocking the sea view and hurting the value of the apartment. In addition, while Gindi Holdings has set a fairly low pricing for the project at this stage, this is an initial pricing – meaning the prices will probably not remain at this level, certainly as the apartments sold are larger, on higher floors and with more luxurious specifications. Gindi stresses that this is not a presale limited to a certain number of apartments, and notes that “all 708 apartments are offered for sale. We estimate that the average for the entire project will be NIS 54,000-55,000 per square meter.”
To this must be added the time that will pass until construction is completed. Although the company has already agreed on financing for each of the projects, with Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank and Bank Leumi, payment for the land is expected to be completed only in a few years. Experts believe it will take six to nine years until occupancy while several projects in the south of the neighborhood are already under construction, including the projects of Canada-Israel and Moshe Avisror and Sons, meaning that these project will be completed years before Gindi’s project. In addition, in the Eshkol neighborhood, infrastructure development has already been completed, while in other parts of the neighborhood it is still in progress.
Gindi estimates that permits for earthworks and support for the project’s foundations will be received in the coming year, and the full permit – within two years. The excavation phase alone is estimated by the company to take about 18 months, due to the presence of groundwater beneath the surface.
“If Gindi sells the apartments with a certain linkage to the construction input index, and considering the fact that this is a project in which the apartments will be delivered, in the best case, in seven years, the price of NIS 49,000 per square meter today is around NIS 65,000 per square meter in seven years,” says an industry source. “We are at an early stage, and it is known how long such things take with the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality. If Gindi manages to sell 20-30% of the apartments in the project even at NIS 50-55,000 per square meter, they have made an excellent deal to get the project moving at an early stage, thereby reducing a lot of risks. In Gindi’s eyes, going into marketing now seems logical.” Beyond that, Gindi Holdings is a private company, which does not deal with maximum transparency or with a demand for answers from investors.
“Everybody will need to come up with a marketing gimmick
The low starting price bar that Gindi is setting raises one central question: What will the competitors do? There are quite a few of them: in the south of the district, there are already at least two projects under construction, and in the coming months at least three more are scheduled to receive a building permit and go on sale – by YH Dimri, the Nachmias Group and Mivne, Allied and Levinstein Engineering (jointly). More than 1,000 apartments are planned for these three projects alone. To these should of course be added the other winners of the February and March tenders – almost 6,000 additional apartments from companies such as Aviv, Melisron, Shikun & Binui, Hagag, Yossi Avrahami and others.
Will Gindi’s marketing prices affect these rivals projects? Regarding projects that are already deep in the marketing phase, the impact will probably be minor, if at all. As for the other projects, time will tell. “The competition in this neighborhood is going to be super aggressive,” says a source, “and in a few months it will only intensify with the additional projects that have been put on the market. I assume that the competitors will wait a bit to see how sales progress, and will react accordingly.
“For a player like Israel-Canada, which has already sold close to half of the project, it is much less dramatic, and they can afford to wait with sales and manage them at a slower pace. As for the others – maybe they will copy Gindi’s tactics and maybe try other creative ways. Either way, I assume that everyone will have to come up with some kind of marketing gimmick, certainly as long as the market is in this situation.”
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on June 5, 2025.
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