The crisis has not ignored Tel Aviv. After chasing real estate stocks blindly in expectation that the party would never end, investors are now scared.
The fall of developer Heftsiba last August, and the financial chaos in its wake, had its effect. True, in the real estate sector they never stopped trying to convince us that Heftsiba was a one-off, specific problem - mostly criminal and not economic. But it certainly should have set off a warning light.
The Israel Real Estate 15 is now 46% below its record high of last May. Many of the index's firms are now trading at a value below its shareholder equity.
