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.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
RSS