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May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 27 2012 11:49
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May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Johannesburg - South African median house prices fell by 13.2% year-on-year in May, with new tougher credit laws and high interest rates cutting demand, a survey showed on Monday.
A median is the middle point between the highest and lowest figures.
Sponsors Standard Bank said the decline in prices may have been overstated by high base effects due to abnormally high activity during the same month last year, but the downward trend still showed declining affordability on high interest rates.
Its monthly property gauge showed the South African median house price fell to R520 000 from R530 000 in April and R599 000 in May 2007.
The five-month moving average growth rate was -5.5%.
"The Standard Bank median house price recorded negative year-on-year growth for the third consecutive month in May," it said in a statement.
South Africa's central bank has raised its repo rate by 450 basis points to 11.5% since June 2006, hitting demand as consumers struggle amid high debt.
While spending has cooled, inflation remains on the boil and rates are widely expected to rise again next week.
"Another interest rate increase, which in our view is a strong possibility, will mean that monthly mortgage instalments will be 36% more than they were when the current bout of interest rate increases commenced," Standard Bank said.
This could lead to even softer house price growth further reduction in the volume of new mortgages granted and registered and lead to even softer house price growth, it said.
- Reuters