Category Archives: Interest rates

Sydney’s property prices dropped 10% this year, with $450 a day lost from average home

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Decline comes as RBA documents indicate values may sink as much as 20% nationally from their February peak by end of 2024

Sydney’s property prices have fallen by more than 10% since their mid-February peak, shedding almost $450 a day in value on an average home, and leading other major markets lower, CoreLogic said.

The 10.1% decline for home values in the harbour city so far comes as documents from the Reserve Bank of Australia indicate average property values may sink as much as 20% nationally from their recent highs by the end of 2024. That decline would be the steepest since the 1980s if realised.

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Handwritten notes, door-knocking, recipes: real estate agents turn ‘desperate’ across Australia

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Amid falling house prices and interest rate rises, agents are turning to increasingly frenzied measures to hunt for sellers

The first time Neha Samar received a handwritten note in her letterbox asking if she would be willing to sell her home, she threw it in the bin and forgot about it. The third time she received a similar note, it felt “creepy”.

Samar has lived in her Shepparton property, north-east of Melbourne, since 2018, but this is the first year real estate agents have come knocking.

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UK housebuilder Bellway expects sluggish sales as interest rates rise

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Company warns that next 12 months will be tougher, with economy likely to go into recession

The UK housebuilder Bellway has said demand for houses has moderated since the summer and it expects the number of sales to be roughly flat over the next year against a backdrop of rising interest rates and a deteriorating economy.

The company completed a record 11,198 homes in the year to 31 July, up 10.5% on the previous year, as a booming housing market drove £3.5bn of revenues, up 13% and also a record.

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Kwarteng considers extending mortgage guarantee scheme

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Initiative may continue beyond December as bank bosses raise concerns over mortgage market

The chancellor is considering extending the government’s mortgage guarantee scheme after UK bank bosses raised concerns over the state of the UK’s mortgage market at a high-level meeting at No 11 Downing Street.

The meeting on Thursday – which was attended by chief executives including Alison Rose of NatWest, Charlie Nunn of Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC UK’s Ian Stuart, Mike Regnier of Santander and TSB’s Robin Bulloch – was scheduled amid mounting fears about the potential fallout from rapidly rising mortgage rates.

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Banks raise interest rates in response to RBA – as it happened

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Australian dollar drops and shares bounce higher on reserve bank’s dovish move. This blog is now closed

Sexual violence rife on dating apps

Dating apps need to better protect their users after a study revealed high rates of sexual violence, stalking, assault and unwanted sharing of explicit images, AAP reports.

This is highly concerning given the significant and potentially long-term impacts associated with these victimisation experiences.

These impacts include poorer health and wellbeing, including overall life satisfaction, social isolation and lower self-esteem, as well as increased risk of re-victimisation.

Considering the long- and short-term implications for victim-survivors after experiencing these harmful behaviours, there is an obvious need to develop mechanisms for protecting users.

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Kwarteng bringing forward debt plan could calm markets, says top Tory MP

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Mel Stride, chair of Treasury committee, says move could also mean smaller interest rate rises

Kwasi Kwarteng’s decision to bring forward his debt-cutting plan could help to calm markets and mean smaller future interest rate rises than would otherwise have been the case, according to the Conservative chair of parliament’s influential Treasury watchdog.

Mel Stride, a Tory MP and the chair of the Treasury committee, said moving the government’s fiscal statement to October from 23 November could restore some confidence, depending on the content of the plan and the detail of the new forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility.

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Property prices dropped further in September and falls ‘could accelerate’ again with rate rise

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Investors and banks predict RBA will raise cash rate further on Tuesday, while rent increases begin to slow around Australia

Australia’s property prices fell another 1.4% in September as the cost of borrowing increased, and another interest rate rise is likely after Tuesday’s Reserve Bank meeting.

Last month’s drop in CoreLogic’s home value index was less than the 1.6% fall in August but the pace of declines could quicken again if the RBA’s key interest rate keeps rising, said Tim Lawless, the data group’s research director.

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Liz Truss admits she should have ‘laid ground better’ before mini-budget and says cabinet not consulted about 45% top rate tax cut – live

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Latest updates: PM vows to press ahead with mini-budget plans and dismisses objections to top rate of tax being axed

Q: Are you absolutely committed to getting rid of the 45% rate of tax?

Yes, says Truss.

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Homeowners warned of ‘significant’ rise in UK interest rates

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Bank of England’s chief economist speaks out after mini-budget, with financial markets expecting rates to reach up to 6%

Britain’s homeowners have been warned to brace themselves for a “significant” increase in interest rates from the Bank of England in response to Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax-cutting mini-budget last week.

Huw Pill, Threadneedle Street’s chief economist, added to the concerns of millions of mortgage payers who have already seen hundreds of home loan products pulled by lenders in anticipation of a big increase in the cost of borrowing.

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UK in recession and further interest rate hikes probable, Bank warns Kwarteng

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Threadneedle Street makes clear on eve of tax-cutting mini-budget that plans risk triggering more rate rises

The Bank of England has warned Kwasi Kwarteng the economy is in recession and it will most probably need to push interest rates higher after Friday’s tax-cutting mini-budget.

On the eve of a major package of support from the chancellor designed to break what he called the economy’s “cycle of stagnation”, Threadneedle Street said the UK economy was heading for a second consecutive quarter of falling output, with gross domestic product set to shrink 0.1% in the three months to September.

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Economists call for radical shakeup of Bank’s interest rate committee

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MPC is dominated by people with little ‘real world’ knowledge and prone to groupthink, says ex-committee member

Members of the Bank of England’s interest-rate setting body should be appointed by the devolved administrations and by English MPs in order to counter groupthink, a former member of Threadneedle Street’s monetary policy committee has said.

David Blanchflower said the committee was dominated by people with little knowledge of the “real world”, and greater diversity of thought was needed to ensure the interests of ordinary people were reflected.

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Biggest interest rate rise for 25 years could spell showdown at the Bank

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This week’s decision could pit Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey against an expansionary PM and chancellor

A lightning strike from the Bank of England awaits. Having delayed its decision until after the period of national mourning for the death of the Queen, Threadneedle Street could this week launch the biggest rise in borrowing costs for at least 25 years.

Announcing its plans a day before Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget on Friday, the central bank is widely expected to use a fast and forceful rate increase to show its commitment to tackling soaring borrowing costs – despite the gathering storm clouds for the British economy.

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World Bank warns higher interest rates could trigger global recession

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Study says global economy is in steepest slowdown after a post-recession recovery since 1970

The world may be edging toward a global recession as central banks simultaneously raise interest rates to combat persistent inflation, the World Bank has warned.

The three largest economies, – the US, China and the eurozone – have been slowing sharply, and even a “moderate hit to the global economy over the next year could tip it into recession”, the bank said in a study.

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BoM forecasts wetter-than-average summer for eastern states – as it happened

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Hearing that house prices are going down but looking around and seeing they are still astronomical?

Grogs explains why – yup, house prices are falling, but they are coming from eye-watering heights.

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Bank of England will not take foot off throttle despite drop in inflation

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MPC members will look at other developments in UK and abroad in mission to increase interest rates

The drop in inflation from 10.1% in July to 9.9% last month is not going to trouble the Bank of England’s policymakers when they meet next week to set interest rates. Its monetary policy committee (MPC) is on a mission to increase the cost of borrowing to bring down inflation to 2%. Prices growth that sticks at almost 10% is still too high. One month’s figures are not a trend.

The nine MPC members will also ponder several other developments at home and abroad that can be considered reasons to increase interest rates.

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Federal Icac legislation to be introduced to parliament next week – as it happened

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Gallagher says Labor has not changed position on tax cuts

And on the stage three tax cuts, Katy Gallagher echoed the line the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, started last week and continued yesterday – which is effectively Labor playing dead on the $243bn cuts:

I have been asked this a number of times. You know, we haven’t changed our view on stage three. They don’t come in until 2024.

My sole focus at the moment is putting a budget together for October and what we can do in the short-term to relieve pressure on families. That is what I’m focused on everyday.

Well, the budget we inherited was heaving with a trillion dollars of Liberal party debt. We got deficits as far as the eye can see.

We got some programs that weren’t funded in an ongoing sense that clearly are programs that need ongoing funding.

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Truss ‘irresponsible’ for threatening to review Bank of England remit

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Labour’s Rachel Reeves says Conservatives are ‘playing blame game’ for UK’s economic problems

Liz Truss has been accused of being “deeply irresponsible” for threatening to tinker with the Bank of England’s mandate on the brink of a recession.

The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, attacked the Tory leadership frontrunner after Truss and her allies repeatedly questioned the performance of the Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, and said she would review the institution’s remit.

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Bank of England hikes interest rates and says inflation will hit 13%

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Base rate raised by 0.5 percentage points to 1.75%, as Bank says inflation will hit 13% in October

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has left Britain on course for a recession lasting more than a year and inflation above 13%, the Bank of England has warned as it raised interest rates for a sixth successive time.

Threadneedle Street said it had no choice but to increase borrowing costs by 0.5 percentage points to 1.75%, blaming Russia for cost of living pressures not seen in more than four decades and a 5% drop in living standards straddling this year and next – the biggest since records began in the 1960s.

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Commonwealth Bank and ANZ raise variable home loan interest rates by half a point to match RBA rise

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Increase puts the banks’ variable interest rates at highest in three years with Westpac and NAB yet to respond to official cash rate hike

The Commonwealth Bank and ANZ have matched this week’s move by the central bank and raised their variable home loan rates.

CBA’s rates for owner-occupier and investor mortgages will rise by half a percentage point on 12 August.

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Liberal MP Bridget Archer to cross the floor on climate bill – as it happened

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Defence review to be announced

The government is announcing a defence force review today, which it wants completed in about six months. Is this in response to China?

It’s because we need an ADF that is well-positioned to meet our security challenges over the next decade and beyond.

And we have inherited, as you all know, some real capability issues, some of which have been well publicised in the media. It is important that we look at how we ensure the Australian defence force can meet our security challenges, not just now, but in the years ahead. So, you know, I welcomed this and the prime minister and the defence minister will be having – we’ll have more details about this later today.

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