How we found an apartment in Israel

Last week I explained why we bought an apartment before moving to Israel.  The next question people have been asking is, logistically how did we do it?

Here’s what I started with: since I’ve never been to Karmiel, it’s totally unfamiliar to me.  I didn’t know anything about the different neighborhoods, so I began by by speaking to people living there to get a sense of where we would be most comfortable.  Once I did that, I studied the map of Karmiel on Google maps repeatedly to get an idea of what was located where.  I looked online at Israeli real estate sites to get an idea of prices in the different neighborhoods, and checked each listing against the Google map to get a sense of what streets were in what neighborhood.  I connected with a real estate agent there as my direct contact.

From speaking to people living there, we decided we wanted to be in a particular neighborhood of Karmiel (Dromit area) for several reasons – primarily that it’s centrally located and a car isn’t necessary, it’s walking distance to shopping and schools.  This means it’s more likely to be easy walking distance for the kids to visit potential friends, since convenient schools are a draw for many.  It’s also where the new shul that was started this year by an Anglo rabbi is.  Though I don’t know if this is the synagogue we’ll attend or not – when we get there we’ll see where we feel most comfortable – that will be an attraction for most Anglos considering Karmiel and I anticipate this is the area that will be the most popular for Anglos (already the bulk of Anglos in our peer group live here).

Somewhere along the way I spoke to a real estate lawyer and a mortgage broker in Israel, to know what was involved legally and financially.  As we went through the housing search, we ended up finding a different mortgage broker who was more in tune with our needs and abilities.  The first person was very nice, but his niche was people buying expensive apartments – over 1.5 million shekels – who had substantial funding and help from family members.  Totally not our reality and when I was almost ready to give up on being able to buy anything, we were directed to the broker we ended up using.

I looked at the listings of available properties online, then narrowed what I was interested in to two of them; I asked my daughter studying there to take a look at them for us.  She took pictures for us – if she couldn’t have done this, I would have asked the real estate agent to send me digital photos.  Pictures are nice but it’s still not the same as being able to walk down the street, into the building, and around the apartment.  But that was okay.

We made our decision based on some very basic criteria:  it’s a nice size (larger apartments are harder to find), in the right neighborhood, and in our budget.

We hired a contractor to give us a report of the apartment before signing anything; our main concern was there was something major that was wrong that we wouldn’t know about until it was too late; he said it’s very well-built.  Houses this size are going for at least five hundred thousand shekels more, and most apartments are significantly smaller, so we were very glad to find this.

In order to sign the contract, we gave power of attorney to someone there.  We had to get a specific power of attorney by the bank issuing the mortgage notarized at the Israeli embassy, and could only do this once we had a specific property lined up.

If we would have been unwilling to buy anything unless it were our dream home, we wouldn’t have found anything.  But we were looking for basically suitable – something that would be a solid foundation to land in.  With Hashem’s amazing assistance, that’s what we found, and with Hashem’s continued help, it will become our dream home because it’s where our family will make our home together.

Avivah