A central bank hike in key interest rates would not diminish homebuyer's appetite for new houses, real estate agents said yesterday.
"We believe small hikes in interest rates will scarcely weigh on the buying sentiment as the increase in mortgage payments will still be in the affordable range," said Victor Chang (
The central bank's policymakers are expected to follow the US Federal Reserve by announcing a small 0.125 percentage point hike in benchmark interest rates on Thursday, ending a series of 15 cuts, forecast Cheng Cheng-mount (
As most local lenders' interest rates on housing mortgages average 3 percent, most borrowers have to pay NT$11,092 a month for a NT$2 million mortgage on a house, according to statistics compiled by Sinyi Real Estate.
Such borrowers would only have to pay NT$252 more per month, even if the central bank raises its benchmark interest rates at a larger-than-expected amount of a quarter of a percentage point, Chang said.
In the first six months of the year, mortgage loans by local lenders expanded to NT$3.2 trillion, an increase of 15.4 percent from a year go, according to central bank statistics.
Chen Yun-ru (
"People will only start to feel the pinch when the payment climbs by around NT$2,500 a month," Chen said.
"We don't expect that is going to happen anytime soon as central bank policymakers are unlikely to take a dramatic step toward a new era of higher interest rates," Chen said, though she added that interest rates will rise the long run.
While the central bank's interest rate hikes would mean higher costs for overnight interbank loans, banks are unlikely to rush to follow suit and pass the higher rates to customers, the capital market is filled with liquidity without many places to go, Chang said.
Last Friday, the state-owned Bank of Taiwan (
The rate will then float, initially at 2.253 percent, which is still much lower than 2.7 percent offered by state-run Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), the biggest housing mortgage lender in the nation.
Chang also feels that people will be more willing to loosen their purse strings for luxury goods and real estate as the nation's economy is on a solid footing this year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
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Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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