Even though the Israeli real estate market has barely taken a hit in the current economic slowdown, Israeli consumer confidence has. That must be a reason to explain why fewer and fewer Israeli’s are looking to make real estate purchases.

According to Globes: “The economic uncertainty has caused Israelis to defer dreams of buying a first apartment or moving to a new one. In April, 6.6% of Israelis said that they planned to buy a new or second-hand apartment in the next six months, compared with 7% of Israelis in March, according to the Consumer Confidence Index, compiled by Globes Research and Kesselman and Kesselman - PricewaterhouseCoopers Israel. This is the lowest level since January 2009, and before that - in January 2006.

The low level of planned home purchases in April is unexpected, since the Consumer Confidence Index jumped in April to 76.1 points, its level before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.”

Let’s see if this lower demand will translate into lower home prices.

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Things apparnetly are boring for El Al airlines so they decided to spice things up a bit. It appears that El Al is openly marketing to European Gays and Lesbians, and hoping to sell them on coming to Israel in June for Gay pride week.

According to Ynet: “According to tourism branch sources, this is the first time El Al takes such a direct and upfront approach to gay tourism, that is courted around the world by travel agencies and airlines due to the great profit potential found among this population.

On average, gay tourists spend more time vacationing than non-gay tourists and are known to be bigger spenders.

The special packages will be marketed in a no less unique way: Thousands of gay Israelis surfing the Atraf dating website were urged to invite their homosexual friends from Europe to vacation in Israel and enjoy an array of events taking place during Gay and Lesbian Pride Month this June.

The events will peak in Tel Aviv’s pride parade, that will be bigger and better than ever this year as part of the city’s centennial celebrations.

If the campaign is successful, hundreds, if not thousands of gay tourists from Europe are expected to flood the city for the first time since the pride parades started.

Tel Aviv’s gay community welcomed the joint initiative with El Al. Travel agent Russell Lord, who specializes in bringing gay tourists to Israel, said on Tuesday, “Since the campaign was launched yesterday, I’ve received many positive responses from gay tourists from Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Greece, and I didn’t believe there would be such quick responses.”

How long do you think it will take for the Israeli Hareidim, or ultra-orthodox, to announce a boycott of El Al? This should be an interesting fight. Stay tuned.

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Brian Buffini, a wel regarded real estate guru in the US, recently said that “Israel is turning out to be a prime real estate destination.”

According to Ynet: “Considered an industry guru, Buffini owns the biggest real estate and business coaching and training company in the US. He arrived in Israel recently to lecture to local real estate agents.

The business of real estate, he told his listeners, can thrive even in these troubled times. Buffini’s teachings advocate using networking and existing business contact, rather than costly advertising, to drum up business.

Realtors, he said, must take the time and invest in creating personal relationships: Every person, on average, knows about 285 people, so if you invest in cultivating 100 relationships, you can increase you potential cliental by 28,500 people.

The US real estate market, left nearly crippled by the financial crisis in the States, is slowly recovering, said Buffini. He recommended Israelis looking to invest in real estate invest in the local market, but if you have your heart set on an American venture, he recommended looking into property in California, Florida and Michigan, as well as in Las Vegas, Nevada and Phoenix, Arizona.”

This is certainly a seal of approval with regards to the Israeli real estate market.

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It looks like the trend for Israeli investors to park their money in short-term bank deposits, has slowed. According to an article in Globes: “The Bank of Israel reported that assets held in banking accounts fell by 4.7% and deposits and in particular short term deposits, which plunged by NIS 11 billion. In contrast there was a 6% increase in investments by Israelis in TASE-listed stocks (NIS 230 billion in January 2009 compared with NIS 227 billion in December 2008) and on overseas stock exchanges (NIS 210 billion in January 2009 compared with NIS 198 billion in December 2008). There was also an increase of NIS 13 billion (5.7%) over this period in the index-linked tradable bonds held by Israelis.”

Part of this also has to do with the outperformance of the local Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange with a positive performance this year.

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