"Israel's mortgage market is not isolated from the household credit market, and the amount of credit for household consumption in Israel is the lowest in the Western world," Mizrahi Tefahot Bank (TASE:MZTF) CEO Eli Yones told "Globes" in an interview.
Yones added, "We've seen in the past how an economic slump does not affect households' responsibility to meet their debts. Even someone who has been fired will continue to pay his debts when he finds a new job, unless there is a catastrophe, such as 25% unemployment."
Yones said, "The sharp rise in home prices has stopped. A person who bought land at NIS 1.2 million per apartment in a middle-class residential neighborhood because he thought that prices would continue to rise, will have to sell at a loss. Whoever financed him should be very wary and not sleep calmly at night."
As for bank fees, Yones said, "It is populism to wage war against bank fees, but the cost of bank services has fallen sharply in recent years, and is very low by international standards. Meanwhile prices for products like cottage cheese, pasta, cars, and gasoline have risen 30-40% and are very high by international standards."
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