Even if we don't go back many decades, we find that in 2000 the average monthly expenditure per household was NIS 9,749, while in 2013 the monthly expenditure per household was NIS 17,600 (Tax Office data).
""In the past, we made do with little. In the transit camps of the 1950s, parents didn't even have medical insurance. As a child, I didn't expect my father to pay for a bus ticket," says Prof. Aharon Namdar, today the dean of the School of Real Estate at Netanya College.
""Actually, it's not enough for parents to help children with their equity to purchase an apartment. Because banks only give mortgages for 20 years, the children's monthly repayments are large, and the parents also help the children with current expenses, which comes at the expense of their pensions," explains Prof. Yaron Zelicha, former Accountant General at the Ministry of Finance and currently Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration at the Ono Academic College.
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""Now they have to take money from their pensions and lower their own standard of living, to help the children. In many cases, the children live with the parents, the parents buy diapers for the children, there is no money for daycare, so the parents look after the grandchildren, and their standard of living drops.".
Ronen Menachem, Director of Strategy at Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, adds: "The standard of living has risen, and in the average consumer basket we find many things that were not present in the basket of the parents' generation. People save when the incentive to save is great. Parents had an incentive to save, but the children's generation does not have the ability to save. In the parents' generation, changes in salary were a significant component in the decision to purchase an apartment, while in the children's generation, the considerations are mainly considerations of equity and the parents' ability to help.".
""The standard of living has risen significantly," says economist Yaakov Sheinin, CEO of Economic Models. "Income has increased, but so have consumption habits and the standard of living. Standards have changed. A couple who earns 20,000 shekels gross together, which is not even 15,000 shekels net, and has to pay rent and raise a child, has no chance of raising equity if his parents are unable to help.
""The result is that such a couple becomes desperate, and this leads to wastefulness. We didn't waste because we could buy an apartment, and we paid off the mortgage, so there's no money left for waste. But someone who knows in advance that they can't buy an apartment prefers to sit in restaurants and travel abroad.".
Real estate appraiser Adi Zvikel believes that the blame also lies with the behavior of young couples: "It's impossible not to notice the gap between the culture of hedonism that characterizes the younger generation today, compared to the culture of frugality of the parents' generation. Today, young people spend money regardless of the cost of living. In the evening, restaurants are packed with 30-somethings who pay hundreds of shekels for a meal.".
""Giving up to despair contributes to a regime of wastefulness. If a young, hardworking couple had lived frugally for the past five years, with a willingness to save money and not waste, they could have saved 200-300 thousand shekels in five years, with rent payments. It is true that this is equity for purchasing a modest apartment, not on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, but a beautiful apartment up to an hour away from Tel Aviv for 700 thousand shekels. There are apartments for these amounts in Gedera, Hadera, Petah Tikva and even in Tel Aviv.
""An apartment like this requires equity of 200,000 shekels with a little help from parents. Young couples should first ask themselves how much they paid for their wedding, amounts that today easily reach 150,000 shekels for one evening, or how much they paid to rent a wedding dress, amounts that reach 10,000 shekels. In other words, the statement that a young couple cannot afford to buy an apartment is incorrect and is tainted with a lot of populism.".
And we need to remember something else. The fact that we are sending today's generation of children to live far from the first and second circles, to places like Kiryat Gat or Yokneam, usually also means distance from the parents and their ability to assist in raising their grandchildren on a daily basis, which of course also costs them quite a bit of money.
Veteran entrepreneur and former CEO of Azorim, Eitan Soroka, also believes that the gaps in living standards between the parents' generation and the children's are significant.
""The generation that immigrated to Israel between 1930 and 1950 lived modestly, frugally, and saved every penny for their children. Buying an apartment for a child was an important value for them, and the number of children at that time did not exceed two. This is a generation that managed to purchase apartments with mortgages that were eroded by inflation. Those born in Israel between 1940 and 1960 also already owned apartments because of the help they received from their parents, and they also received inheritances from their parents.
""The problem is with the generation born between 1970 and 1990. This is a spoiled generation that grew up in relatively comfortable conditions. A generation characterized by wastefulness without any awareness of saving, a generation that spends all its money on current consumption, and therefore will not be able to help its children buy an apartment.".
""It should be remembered that apartment prices have risen significantly, so these two facts make it impossible to help children purchase an apartment.".
""This generation is enslaved to payments and credit that it took out for purchases and consumption. This generation also does not have a budget pension and the existing pension is low. Its job is also no longer as secure as it was in the past. We must also remember that the picture of wealth in Israel has changed, and there are young people who have accumulated money mainly in the high-tech industry.
""These young people are disrupting the picture in the eyes of the public, but we must remember that this is a minority that does not change the trend.".
