The biggest mistake is talking about “the real estate market” as though it were one single market.

In recent weeks, we’ve been seeing headlines that sometimes appear contradictory.

On the one hand, sales of new homes are strengthening. On the other hand, the second-hand market is weaker. The latest national home price index showed a slight increase. But in the Central District, prices are still significantly lower than they were a year ago.

So, is the market going up or down?

The answer is that there is no single real estate market today.

There is a market for new homes and a market for resale properties. There is Tel Aviv, Modi’in and Be’er Sheva. There are apartments with a Mamad (safe room) and apartments without one. There are homes priced at 2 million shekels and homes priced at 5 million.

Each of these markets is currently being influenced by different forces.

You can see this split when you look at prices as well.

In the latest index, home prices in Israel rose by 0.1%, but compared with the same period last year, they are still 1.5% lower.

In other words, someone reading the headline “The decline in home prices has been halted” is only getting part of the picture.

And the same is true in Modi’in.

When I’m assessing how much an apartment in Buchman, Nofim or Moreshet is worth, I’m far less interested in the fact that home prices across Israel rose by 0.1%.

What matters to me is what happened to similar properties in that specific neighborhood.

How many competing properties are currently trying to attract the same buyer? How long have they been on the market? What price were they listed at, and what prices were deals actually closed at?

Real estate is, first and foremost, a local market.

For a seller in Modi’in, knowing that sales in Tel Aviv have increased or that the average price across Israel has fallen doesn’t really help. What they need to know is what is happening in the market for their particular property.

The same is true for buyers.

A buyer shouldn’t decide whether to purchase a home simply because they read a headline saying that prices are falling. Prices may be declining nationally, while the particular property they are looking for is in a neighborhood where inventory is limited and properties are selling quickly.

So today, the right question isn’t “What is happening in the Israeli real estate market?”

It is:

What is happening in the specific market where you want to buy or sell?