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SA: Economy: House price growth keeps slowing & inflation is exploding…

WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.

Original Post Date: 2008-03-07 Time: 00:00:00  Posted By: Jan

[Inflation went over the 10% mark!!! I have mentioned before that the many things the ANC is doing to the economy is causing certain uncontrollable things to happen. Inflation is one of them. Keep watching it.

There’s even talk of “one more” interest rate increase – which will surely hurt and already seriously ailing economy. Jan]

Last month, year-on-year growth in house prices in the middle segment of the market slowed further to a nominal 8,7 percent from a revised 9,9 percent in January.

“House-price growth has not been so low since the end of 1999, when it was 9,3 percent,” Absa said on Thursday.

Their house price index showed that the average price of a middle-segment house was about R969 800 last month. In real terms, year-on-year price growth was 0,6 percent in January, down from 2 percent in December.

“This was the lowest real growth since the 1,4 percent recorded in September 1999,” Absa said.

Against the background of nominal house-price growth continuing to decline, whereas inflation was on the rise, real year-on-year price growth might turn negative in the near future, Absa warned. The last time house prices declined in real terms on an annual basis was back in mid-1999, it said.

On a month-on-month basis, nominal house-price growth remained stable at 0,3 percent last month from January.

In real terms, house prices declined by 0,8 percent in January from November, which was the largest monthly real decline since January 2002 when it was also 0,8 percent.

The slowdown in year-on-year house-price growth had accelerated since September last year, mainly driven by further interestrate hikes in the second half of last year, a significant slowdown in growth in real household disposable income up to late 2007 and the full implementation of the National Credit Act in mid-2007.

The outlook for inflation, according to Absa, is not positive in the short-term, in view of the interna-tional oil price, the rand exchange rate and food-price inflation.

The inflation rate is forecast to rise to above 9 percent but, says Absa, “against the background of consumer demand slowing, the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee is not expected to hike interest rates at their meeting in April.

“The forecast is for interest rates to remain unchanged in 2008.” –

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20080307061228569C107509