Buying a home before you have sold the one you own: what the bank checks, bridge loan and purchase tax

You can buy before you sell, but until the money from the home you own arrives, the gap has to be financed. On the new home the bank may lend up to 70% of its value, if you commit to selling the one you own, and the rest comes from your own sources. Part of the money the sale will bring can be received in advance as a bridge loan (הלוואת גישור) secured on the home you own, if the bank agrees. And the home you own must be sold within 24 months of the purchase, or, for a home bought from a contractor (קבלן), within 12 months of the handover: people who sell in time pay purchase tax (מס רכישה) on the new one as on a single home.

Calculate a new mashkanta: how much the bank can lend you and in what mix (תמהיל)

Below: what each order costs, how much the bank finances, what is allowed in a bridge loan and how the bank checks the payment when there are two loans, and what happens if the sale is delayed. The numbers come from the Bank of Israel's directives and the Real Estate Taxation Law, and the dates are at the end of the page.

Sell first or buy first

• Selling first: you know exactly how much money you have before you sign for the new home, and there are no two loans at once. What it may cost: temporary housing, if the home you own has to be vacated before the new one is ready.
• Buying first: you choose the new home without pressure to vacate the one you own, but until the sale you also pay the existing mashkanta, and sometimes a bridge loan on top. And the sale has a deadline, and the purchase tax depends on it.
• In parallel: you match the payment dates in the purchase contract to the dates on which the buyers of the home you own pay you, so the large payments for the new home come after the money from the sale is already with you.

How much the bank finances while you still own a home

What decides it is whether you commit to selling the home you own. If you do, the new home is a replacement home, and the bank may finance up to 70% of its value. If you keep the one you own, the new one is an investment property, and the ceiling is 50% (sections 1 and 2). The commitment is given in a declaration to the Tax Authority, and the bank asks for a copy of it (section 3).

The value is the lower of the appraiser's valuation and the purchase price (question 2.17). And if you also pledge the home you own to the bank, the ceiling on the new one does not rise: it is measured against the home being bought only (section 1).

Bridge loan: what is allowed and what is not

The equity (הון עצמי), the difference between the price of the home and the mashkanta, the bank may not lend you: neither as a consumer loan nor as a loan on another home. There is one exception, only for a replacement home: a bridge loan that meets all three conditions together (question 2.6):

• Secured on the home you own. all the loans on it together, including the mashkanta already on it, do not exceed 50% of its value.
• Only the missing amount. the loan is no larger than what is needed to complete the financing of the new home.
• For no longer than the period in which the home you own must be sold. for a home bought from a contractor, the bank may renew the loan for up to 12 months from the day the home was actually handed over to you.

For example, the home you own is worth 2,000,000 ₪ and has a mashkanta of 600,000 ₪ on it. 50% of its value is 1,000,000 ₪, so the bridge loan can reach at most 400,000 ₪, and only if that is the amount missing for the purchase.

The bank may give a bridge loan but does not have to give it. Help from a first-degree relative, for example parents who take a loan secured on their own home, is allowed (question 2.7). And if in the end you want to turn the bridge loan into a long loan, that is a new loan in every respect, and all the ceilings apply to it (question 7.4).

A loan taken elsewhere, for example from a provident fund (קופת גמל) or a study fund (קרן השתלמות), also counts at the bank: if more than 18 months of it remain, its payment is deducted from the income, as the next section explains.

The payment against income, when there are two loans

The bank checks the monthly payment against the disposable income: the payment on the new mashkanta will not exceed 50% of it. The payments on every loan with more than 18 months left are deducted from the income, and the mashkanta on the home you own is such a loan too (Appendix A).

But the bank may count by the date on which you will pay a loan off, instead of its original date, if it holds a document about the money that will pay it off. For this it may treat your declaration to the Tax Authority, that you will sell the home you own, as such a document, as long as the period stated in the declaration has not passed (question 4.10). Then, if by the declaration the existing mashkanta will be closed within 18 months, its payment may not be deducted from the income. This too is the bank's option, not its duty, so ask it in advance how it will count.

How soon you must sell, and what it does to the purchase tax

People who buy a home in place of their only home pay purchase tax on the new one by the single-home brackets, on condition that they sell the one they own within 24 months of buying the new one (and if it is bought from a contractor, within 12 months of the handover date in the contract, or of the actual handover, if it was delayed for reasons beyond your control). This is what the Real Estate Taxation Law (section 9) sets for purchases from 01/06/2025 onwards.

People who do not sell in time do not get this relief, and their purchase tax is that of an additional home. The difference is large: on a home priced at 2,500,000 ₪, by today's brackets, the purchase tax for a single home is 20,538 ₪, and for an additional home 200,000 ₪.

And what about the mashkanta, if the sale is delayed? The bank does not have to demand the whole loan back at once just because you have not sold (question 2.12). But the bridge loan is no longer than the period set for the sale, and at its end it is repaid.

Calculate on the site

When building a mix on the site, choose “Replacement home”. The payment on the existing mashkanta has a field of its own there, “The payment on the mashkanta of the home you own now”, and the calculation deducts it from the income, like a bank that does not rely on the declaration. The terms of a bridge loan on the home you own are written under the choice too.

Before any step, check with your bank. The payoff balance, the early repayment fee (עמלת פירעון מוקדם) and the rate on a new offer are set by the bank, and its figure is the one that counts.

Sources and dates

Bank of Israel Proper Conduct of Banking Business Directive 329 “Limits on granting housing loans”, version 13, sections 1, 2 and 3 and Appendix A. The Banking Supervision's questions and answers on Directive 329, update of 08/02/2026: questions 2.6, 2.7, 2.12, 2.17, 4.10 and 7.4. The Real Estate Taxation Law, section 9, and the Tax Authority's real estate taxation instruction 2/2026. All of these were read on 09/11/2026, and we will check them again by 09/02/2027. The purchase tax brackets: by the Tax Authority instruction that publishes them, checked on 21/08/2026. Published 09/11/2026.

The documents themselves, on the Bank of Israel website (in Hebrew):

• Proper Conduct of Banking Business 329
• Questions and answers of the Supervisor of Banks on Directive 329

The law and the Tax Authority's instruction:

• The Real Estate Taxation Law (Capital Gains and Purchase), on the Nevo site
• The Tax Authority: real estate taxation instruction 2/2026