
Half of Britons Struggle With Soaring Cost of Running Households
Almost half of people in Britain are struggling with a surge in the cost of running their household after inflation hit a four-decade high, a think tank warned.
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Almost half of people in Britain are struggling with a surge in the cost of running their household after inflation hit a four-decade high, a think tank warned.
A Saudi prince is suing a business partnership over $5 million in his purchase of a stake in a lush Bahamian island, the latest of the kingdom’s wealthy royals to turn to Delaware’s Chancery Court to resolve a dispute.
Colombia’s central bank slowed the pace of monetary tightening and signaled that interest rate rises are nearing an end as the economy’s growth outlook dims.
Housing costs, and Canada’s unique way of capturing them in inflation, suggest that consumer price gains may slow rapidly in coming months.
Clap along for Grammy-winning singer and producer Pharrell Williams, whose long-awaited effort to build a surf park in his hometown of Virginia Beach, Virginia, will mark one of the biggest high-yield deals so far this year.
Oct 3, 2019
Bloomberg News
,Vancouver home sales rebounded 46 per cent in September in a sign that Canada’s most expensive home market may be finding its feet following a policy-driven downturn.
It was the third consecutive month that the number of properties sold was up from the same period last year. Prices, however, continue to slip: the benchmark home price fell 7.3 per cent in September compared with the same month last year, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
Vancouver, once one of the world’s hottest real estate markets, has been reeling under a slew of government policies introduced since 2016 to tame years of relentless growth that made the city the most unaffordable on the continent.
Both the Liberal and Conservative parties are promising to make home buying more affordable in the current federal election campaign. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pledging to boost the cap on homes eligible for a 10 per cent government-equity stake to almost $800,000 in costly markets like Vancouver and Toronto while the Conservatives plan to extend mortgage amortizations and ease qualifications.
The International Monetary Fund said in a blog post Wednesday that policies designed to help buyers enter the housing market by allowing them to borrow more tend to ultimately boost property prices and fail to improve affordability.
“Well-meaning policies that aim to improve housing affordability by increasing households’ capacity to borrow may unintentionally raise house prices—ultimately resulting in homebuyers having to borrow more and leading to higher household debt,” it said. “Why? Because housing supply is fixed in the short term.”
To address housing affordability, Canadian policy makers need a more comprehensive policy that addresses supply, such as making the approval process speedier and more transparent and constructing more rental-only housing, the IMF said.