Real estate purchases by Americans said to be slowing

"The second intifada really brought down the market and the number of foreign buyers here dropped considerably," [David Baruch], who left his position as CEO of the Bank of Jerusalem earlier this month, told The Jerusalem Post on his last day on the job. "But then, on the other hand, over the last three years, the violence has mostly dropped off, and coupled with a rise of anti-Semitism around the world, we have seen an unprecedented run of foreigners buying up real estate across the city."

"It is really the dream of so many American Jews to be able to own a piece of property in the Holy City and the Bank of Jerusalem has helped a large percentage of them in making it a reality," he said, estimating that the bank handles approximately 40 percent of all foreign mortgages in Jerusalem. "We are more familiar to people in New York than in Herzliya and we can attribute our success to the fact that we have built our activities specifically for foreigners."

"In 2008, high demand will continue to push prices in the Jerusalem real estate market higher," Baruch said. "However, American Jews, who have been purchasing apartments across the city at a very fast rate, will buy apartments at a slower clip as the effects of this year's subprime crisis set in."

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