25% of Israelis will buy an apartment "on paper"

Globes: Majority of Israelis avoid home purchases "on paper".

"In response to the question, "If you were planning to buy an apartment today, would you buy an apartment on paper, i.e. an apartment whose construction had not yet begun?" 7% responded "definitely yes", 18% said "yes", but 20% said "no", and 49% said "absolutely not". 4% replied "I don’t know" or said that it would depend on the contractor."

Jake in Jerusalem comments: This business of Israeli building contractors taking money for buildings that don't exist and then running away with the money is a very old story. "Builders" here have been doing this for decades. The Heftsiba case of the past few months was breathtaking in it's magnitude. THOUSANDS of buyers were swindeled out of their life savings and the culprit is now fighting extradition from Italy. Hundreds of families are living in underground shelters or have otherwise been rendered homeless and bankrupt. Oh, the law here has sided with the banks, giving them rights to claim and leaving the little people to sleep in the streets. That's what it's like in the "worker's paradise"...

There are some honest builders in Israel (hey, there are some honest Israelis period - not many though) but all of business in Israel is based on making the other guy the 'freier' and stealing from him. Once you recognize that it's a fundamentally Communist economy here, many other things start to make sense...