Australia house prices fell the most in 16 months last month and face “significant” downside risk as mortgage holidays and government wage subsidies expire in coming months.
Property values in major cities fell 0.8 percent last month, the steepest decline since February last year, CoreLogic Inc data released yesterday showed.
The slide was led by Perth and Melbourne, which is at the center of a new spike in COVID-19 cases that has prompted the government to lock down parts of the city.
Photo: Bloomberg
“Despite the early signs of improved economic activity and a lift in housing turnover, the downside risk remains significant,” CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless said. “The recent rise of active virus cases in Victoria is a reminder that the potential risk of a second wave remains a stark reality.”
The housing market faces a further test later this year, when current extraordinary levels of government and bank assistance start to wind down.
More than 485,000 home borrowers are on payment holidays, while about 3.5 million workers are on government wage subsidies, with both programs helping avoid the need for forced sales that could push down prices.
The wage subsidies are set to end in September, while banks might also toughen up criteria for borrowers wanting to extend the initial six-month payment deferrals.
“Eventually, the economy and borrowers will need to abide by market forces,” Lawless said. “This is when we could see a rise in mortgage arrears and the potential for a lift in urgent or forced sales.”
While Australia’s relative success in containing the virus means the economy is reopening quicker than in many other countries, the after-effects might linger for years.
A second wave of infections that slows or reverses the reopening could also set back the recovery.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS