How many square meters of his own apartment can a 25-year-old afford in Tel Aviv? We did the math. The answer fits inside an elevator.

In Sweden, they decided to stop talking about the housing crisis in economic terms.

The real estate company Riksbyggen took the average income of a 25-year-old from Stockholm, their savings, the mortgage terms, and the price per square meter — and checked how much housing they can actually buy.

It came out to 1.9 square meters.

And then they built it. Really. Inside — a bed, a toilet, and a tiny kitchenette. A box to live in.

This worked better than a hundred reports.

And what about here? In a country that explains the cost of living by blaming the war, rather than the waste of money?

We, the volunteers of "Civil Compass", are neither economists nor real estate market analysts. We simply took open data and did the math together with you.

Average salary in Israel – about NIS 14–15 thousand gross (Central Bureau of Statistics).
Price per square meter in Tel Aviv – about NIS 60 thousand.

In other words, a single square meter costs about four salaries. Not a month of work. Four months. And that's assuming you don't eat.

And it's not enough to "buy" an apartment. The bank needs to approve a mortgage. And then pay it off for a quarter of a century — meaning, in practice, until the end of your life.

If you apply the same logic used by Riksbyggen to Israel, you get on the scale of 1–2 square meters. Roughly like in Stockholm.

And this is perhaps the most unpleasant thing about this story. Try to imagine it. Um… an elevator?

We’ve gotten used to phrases like: "an expensive country", "an expensive city", "it's hard for young people". Percentages, indices, billions — all of this means nothing to a young person who wants to get married and have a child. One. At least one.

Now imagine a room measuring one by one and a half meters in central Tel Aviv.
An elevator. You can fit a bed. Living there — not anymore.

The question isn't why apartments are expensive.

The question is different: why does a person who works, earns a salary, and pays taxes have almost no chance of buying an apartment in the city where they live?

Maybe it's time for us too to stop talking about the housing crisis only in numbers. To build these 1–2 square meters right in the center of Tel Aviv. And put a sign next to them: "Here is how much housing of his own a young person can afford."

And ask the state, the municipality, and the politicians:
Is this what you want? And this, by the way, is something that can be counted — without slogans and without the star from the sky that they promise us before every election cycle.

**And how many meters do you get? Take your salary, your savings, and the price per square meter in your city — and write it in the comments.

Dr. Gutnik "Civil Compass"
www.amechad.info

An important disclaimer for the sake of fairness: 1.9 square meters is a calculation by the Swedish company Riksbyggen for Stockholm. The Israeli figure is our rough attempt to apply similar logic, and not an official index. Riksbyggen's full methodology was not fully published, which is why we say "on the scale of 1–2 square meters" and not a fictitious exact number.

Video: Riksbyggen, Sweden. Used for reporting and public criticism in accordance with Section 19 of the Copyright Law, 2007. Rights reserved to their respective owners.