Home on ‘wrong side’ of Ayalon Highway fetches only NIS 9.5m

A 297 square meter, five room, 14th floor apartment with three balconies totaling 15 square meters in Ramat Gan’s iconic Garden Tower, better known as Pivko Tower, has been sold for just NIS 9.45 million. Real estate experts insist the home, in a tower familiar to those traveling on the Ayalon Highway, would have been worth far more had it been located just west of the road in Tel Aviv rather than just east in Ramat Gan.

The distinctive building was designed by architect Ilan Pivko, “With a 12-meter-high dome made of steel construction, glazed with transparent materials.” The plan was approved 27 years ago, and the developer, Canaan Diamonds Development and Investments Ltd., built the tower in 2003. Despite the small number of apartments in the tower – only 11 – the marketing of the apartments in it was particularly slow and took years.

Not many second-hand transactions have been carried out in the project. The most recent deal registered with the Israel Tax Authority was completed four years ago, in which a 4-room, 145-square-meter apartment, on the ninth floor, was sold for NIS 6.4 million.

Because of the distinctiveness of the project, the deal can be analyzed in several ways, and there is no point in comparing the price of the apartment with the prices of other apartments in the area. This is a unique project, unlike anything in its immediate and distant surroundings. It is in the prestigious Harizim neighborhood in northwest Ramat Gan, where, among other things, a large number of TAMA 38 projects have been carried out.

Appraisals that are undertaken in the industry to value special properties have been used. The first method by which the deal price can be examined is the most trivial of all, the price initially being asked and how long it took for a sale to be reached.

The apartment was up for sale for a long time, and the initial price quoted for it was much higher. The Montefiore Real Estate Group, which ultimately succeeded in selling the apartment, asked NIS 11 million, but the owners were forced come down by more than NIS 1.5 million.

Another important question is how many people are willing to pay more than NIS 10 million for an apartment in Ramat Gan. It turns out that in the first half of 2025, only one apartment in the city was sold for a price that exceeded this threshold, while 84 such apartments were purchased in Tel Aviv. So from this perspective, it seems that the apartment, or rather the entire project, is on the “wrong side” of the Ayalon River (and the Ayalon Highway) and people are willing to pay a higher price for smaller apartments in the Bavli and Park Tzameret neighborhoods that are located west of the highway.

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To prove the point that home prices are all about ‘location, location, location,’ we looked at similar apartments on the Tel Aviv side of the Ayalon highway. In Park Tzameret Towers, prices on average are NIS 50,000 per square meter, while the apartment in Pivko Tower sold for NIS 32,000 per square meter.

Montefiore Real Estate brokers Adam Dreyfuss and Roie Kaner, who represented the sellers, said, “This is a large and unusual deal in terms of price in Ramat Gan, in one of the most unique towers in the State of Israel, which sits right inside Yarkon Park, and was also the first luxury tower built in the city.” The two stress the apartment needs renovation, and that the price is fair for both parties.

Real estate appraiser Tamar Avraham says, “The price is low. This is an apartment that spans an entire floor, with views in four directions. The price reflects a value of about NIS 32,000 per square meter. A survey I conducted of apartments in Tzameret Park shows that prices there are around NIS 55,000 per square meter. It is possible that the building itself contributes to the low prices, but in the last three years there have been no transactions in it, so it is difficult for me to examine whether this specific building receives low prices.”

Bottom line: Hundreds of new towers have gone up since Pivko Tower was built, but it remains iconic due to its unique and controversial appearance. Despite its special location, huge apartments and unique design, it seems that the combination of a huge apartment, in a distinctive tower, in Ramat Gan, affects the prices, as well as the fact that the apartment needs renovation.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on August 25, 2025.

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