Fili’s world

It’s not about my own twisted perception, cause by time spent in Asia, I’m sure of that now. Israel, and especially Tel Aviv, is a lot more expensive to live in than it was a year and a half ago.

I visited two different friends of mine in TelAviv lately, both living next to down-town’s Eben Gvirol st. They both have a nice little flat in a young-shick location, 15 minutes walk away from the beach and just around the block from the best that TelAviv has to offer. They both searched for their flats for a long time till they found them, since the good ones were already taken, and they are both paying around the sum of 450US$ (2350 shekels - not including anything, especially arnona, which is deadly there) for a small shared apartment.
Parking is a mess, traffic jams are horrible, but for them it’s still worth all that money to accomplish their old fantasy of having an apartment in TelAviv. The apartment market in Tel-Aviv is becoming totally absurd and prices for real-estate and rent have gone up mad.

I recently found a few gasoline receipts from before I took off to Asia only to notice that back then refueling my car it cost me around 210 shekels (45US$) in average. Nowadays, every time I go into a gas station - even with all the discount for self service - I know that it’s going to be around 280 shekels for a full tank. 33% up in a year’s time, could this be for real?

Is it just real-estate and gasoline? nope, it’s not. The expenses of going out have also gone up dramatically. Since a lot more people are going out now than they did before and there aren’t enough places to keep up with demand, prices in bars-pubs and restaurants are sometimes insanely high. Eating out and going out for a few drinks with friends has never been like this.

To be fair, I have to mention that Israel’s inflation is very moderate, around 3.5%, so officially - the price trend that I’m witnessing is suppose to be balanced by something else, which I haven’t figured out yet.

Yet, it’s not just me.
Haaretz, the only Israeli newspaper actually worth reading, had an article this morning in the “The Marker” business section about the new rankings for the world’s Costs of Living list. Headline was “A no-discount city : Tel Aviv jumped the Costs of Living rankings” climbing up from place 39 to place 24 in Mercer’s Expat rankings. Something is happening in Tel-Aviv, maybe all over Israel, but no one can explain what.

Also interesting are the East-Asian ranking in that list : Seoul (2), Tokyo (3), Hong-Kong (4), Osaka (6), Beijing (14), Singapore (17), Shanghai (20), Taipei (28), Hanoi (32), Saigon (37) … so even “cheaper” countries like China and Vietnam are up there on the list, with a higher ranking than Tel-Aviv’s.

The weird thing is that in Hong-Kong and Taipei there are more options, even for those with less cash, that would also allow them to live comfortably. Taipei’s food range is extraordinary and a decent full meal in a great place could be around 100-150NT$ (3-5US$). Taipei and HongKong both had foodcourts, night-markets, food markets, street stalls etc. but there isn’t anything like that in Israel, probably due to the evolution of the security situation.
For example - a simple Hummus dish with no drinks will start at 3US$ and if you want a full-meal, it will be at least 20 shekels at the cheap student places and at least 35 shekels in any crap-chain.
The Canadian guest I had here about a month ago, who lives in Toronto, said that she was completely overwhelmed with how expensive everything is over here . I was a bit surprised, but she detailed some comparisons of everyday things, and I accept that as a observational subjectional fact.

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Do I mind? Probably not as much as some of my student 20-shekels-an-hour-salary friends. I’m curious as to what’s happening and also a bit worried. Thing that I keep wondering about is how the foreign/local low-paid workers that try to make money here are surviving all this and how student-backpackers who come here for a visit could enjoy themselves without going bankrupt… :$ :$