The Good Rabbi's Blog

I was looking through some various articles recently, and came across something interesting. Recently, there has been a major housing bubble rising in Tel Aviv, with prices rising about 70% in the past year and a half (apartments on Hayarkon street currently go for about $15,000 per square metre). There's definitely a bubble there.

A lot of Israelis are looking for slightly higher living though. It seems that over 1,000 Israelis bought property on the moon in December. A loophole in land-registry laws led an American speculator to register the moon and all of the planets in the solar system in the 1970s. Now one million lunar acres—10% of the quantity sold—are reportedly owned by Israelis. Those prepared to pay 500 shekels ($120) per dunam (roughly a quarter of an acre) receive an aerial photograph of their plot and an ownership certificate. Vendors of this space-land include Crazyshop (site is in Hebrew), an Israeli online operation. The company's chief says demand is high because NASA has decided to construct a base on the moon and speculators think lunar property prices are set to soar.