Abandoned houses in Israel

Every time I walk or take the bus around Haifa, I see abandoned housing everywhere. Have you noticed this? From my perspective, at least 30% of the buildings in Haifa seem unoccupied. Perhaps other cities have a similar situation. When you think about it, that’s a huge number!

Meanwhile, Israel has insanely high real estate prices, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to afford my own home here. Yet, there are so many abandoned apartments that could be housing people.

Italy came up with a great solution to this problem—selling abandoned properties for 1 euro with a contract requiring the owner to invest at least 30,000 euros in renovations (I might be off on the exact number, but it’s around that).

Why doesn’t Israel adopt a similar approach? Is it political laziness? A lack of proactive people to launch such a program? Or are there other reasons? What do you think about this?