They say the sky's the limit. Maybe, but for some countries it is unaffordable housing that is bringing people out onto the streets to protest
Of all the troubles in the world today, and especially in the perennially turbulent Middle East, who would have thought that it would be real estate that is currently causing such a major headache for the Israeli government? In July the country was engulfed by massive housing protests, which some Western commentators have even compared to the protests in the Arab world. What is the problem? The strong Israeli economy seemed to be chugging along quite oblivious to what has been going on world-wide. In the midst of the global financial crisis, while Dubai came within a hair's breadth of bankruptcy after residential prices in the emirate tumbled to less than 50 pct of their pre-crisis levels, Israel had in fact managed to buck the trend with a steady growth in the price of homes. And the trend is still ongoing, which is hardly news for those who f