Around the world, soaring borrowing costs are squeezing homebuyers and property owners alike. From Sydney to Stockholm to Seattle, buyers are pulling back as central banks raise interest rates at the fastest pace in decades, sending house prices falling. Millions of people who borrowed cheaply to purchase homes during pandemic boom face higher payments as loans reset. The rapid slowdown in real estate — a leading source of household wealth — threatens to worsen a global economic downturn. How the decline plays out is a key variable for central bankers who want to tamp down inflation without hurting consumer confidence and triggering a deep recession. The slowdown is a stark turnaround from a boom fuelled by central banks’ easy-money policies in the years after the financial crisis and then supercharged by a pandemic . . .
Read more at sg.finance.yahoo.com