In Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, Demand for Gold and Dollars Soars
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    HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $1,613,207 (-0.60%)       Melbourne $969,484 (-0.54%)       Brisbane $991,125 (-0.15%)       Adelaide $906,278 (+1.12%)       Perth $892,773 (+0.03%)       Hobart $726,294 (-0.04%)       Darwin $657,141 (-1.18%)       Canberra $1,003,818 (-0.83%)       National $1,045,092 (-0.37%)                UNIT MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $754,460 (+0.43%)       Melbourne $495,941 (+0.11%)       Brisbane $587,365 (+0.63%)       Adelaide $442,425 (-2.43%)       Perth $461,417 (+0.53%)       Hobart $511,031 (+0.36%)       Darwin $373,250 (+2.98%)       Canberra $492,184 (-1.10%)       National $537,029 (+0.15%)                HOUSES FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 9,787 (-116)       Melbourne 14,236 (+55)       Brisbane 8,139 (+64)       Adelaide 2,166 (-18)       Perth 5,782 (+59)       Hobart 1,221 (+5)       Darwin 279 (+4)       Canberra 924 (+36)       National 42,534 (+89)                UNITS FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 8,638 (-81)       Melbourne 8,327 (-30)       Brisbane 1,728 (-19)       Adelaide 415 (+10)       Perth 1,444 (+2)       Hobart 201 (-10)       Darwin 392 (-7)       Canberra 1,004 (-14)       National 22,149 (-149)                HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $820 (+$20)       Melbourne $620 ($0)       Brisbane $630 (-$5)       Adelaide $615 (+$5)       Perth $675 ($0)       Hobart $560 (+$10)       Darwin $700 ($0)       Canberra $680 ($0)       National $670 (+$4)                UNIT MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $750 ($0)       Melbourne $590 (-$5)       Brisbane $630 (+$5)       Adelaide $505 (-$5)       Perth $620 (-$10)       Hobart $460 (-$10)       Darwin $580 (+$20)       Canberra $550 ($0)       National $597 (-$)                HOUSES FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 6,197 (+313)       Melbourne 6,580 (-5)       Brisbane 4,403 (-85)       Adelaide 1,545 (-44)       Perth 2,951 (+71)       Hobart 398 (-13)       Darwin 97 (+4)       Canberra 643 (+11)       National 22,814 (+252)                UNITS FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 10,884 (-22)       Melbourne 6,312 (0)       Brisbane 2,285 (-54)       Adelaide 357 (-14)       Perth 783 (-14)       Hobart 129 (-14)       Darwin 132 (+6)       Canberra 831 (+15)       National 21,713 (-97)                HOUSE ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND       Sydney 2.64% (↑)      Melbourne 3.33% (↑)        Brisbane 3.31% (↓)       Adelaide 3.53% (↓)       Perth 3.93% (↓)     Hobart 4.01% (↑)      Darwin 5.54% (↑)      Canberra 3.52% (↑)      National 3.34% (↑)             UNIT ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND         Sydney 5.17% (↓)       Melbourne 6.19% (↓)     Brisbane 5.58% (↑)      Adelaide 5.94% (↑)        Perth 6.99% (↓)       Hobart 4.68% (↓)     Darwin 8.08% (↑)      Canberra 5.81% (↑)        National 5.78% (↓)            HOUSE RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND       Sydney 0.8% (↑)      Melbourne 0.7% (↑)      Brisbane 0.7% (↑)      Adelaide 0.4% (↑)      Perth 0.4% (↑)      Hobart 0.9% (↑)      Darwin 0.8% (↑)      Canberra 1.0% (↑)      National 0.7% (↑)             UNIT RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND       Sydney 0.9% (↑)      Melbourne 1.1% (↑)      Brisbane 1.0% (↑)      Adelaide 0.5% (↑)      Perth 0.5% (↑)      Hobart 1.4% (↑)      Darwin 1.7% (↑)      Canberra 1.4% (↑)      National 1.1% (↑)             AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL HOUSES AND TREND         Sydney 29.8 (↓)     Melbourne 31.7 (↑)      Brisbane 30.6 (↑)        Adelaide 25.2 (↓)       Perth 35.2 (↓)     Hobart 35.1 (↑)      Darwin 44.2 (↑)        Canberra 31.5 (↓)     National 32.9 (↑)             AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL UNITS AND TREND         Sydney 29.7 (↓)       Melbourne 30.5 (↓)     Brisbane 27.8 (↑)        Adelaide 22.8 (↓)     Perth 38.4 (↑)        Hobart 37.5 (↓)       Darwin 37.3 (↓)       Canberra 40.5 (↓)       National 33.1 (↓)           
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In Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, Demand for Gold and Dollars Soars

Turks are pouring money into foreign currency, jewellery and other assets as the lira weakens

By JARED MALSIN
Mon, Aug 7, 2023 8:37amGrey Clock 3 min

ISTANBUL—Deep in the stone warren of Istanbul’s 560-year-old Grand Bazaar, a cluster of traders selling gold and dollars pace the alleyway, murmuring into phones and smoking. The tension rises as demand grows. A shout comes from the crowd: “I’ve got it ready!”

Turks are pouring money into foreign currency, gold, cryptocurrency, jewellery and other assets that they see as a safer bet than the Turkish lira, which has lost more than 80% of its value in the past five years.

“There’s an atmosphere of panic,” said Mustafa Demiray, 39, a currency trader standing on the edge of the crowd and clutching two phones. “People think the price [for dollars] will go up, so there’s a higher demand right now.”

The collapse of the lira is the result of an era of economic mismanagement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, economists say. The Turkish leader in recent years has pressured the central bank into cutting interest rates despite the country’s high rate of inflation—the opposite of what central banks would usually do.

Erdogan has attempted to adjust course since winning a close election in May in which his opponents attacked him over Turks’ purchasing power, with many people cutting back on meat, fish and even vegetables.

The country’s newly appointed central-bank governor, Hafize Gaye Erkan, and Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek have raised interest rates, but too slowly to get inflation under control, analysts say.

The Turkish lira continued to slide after the central bank’s July meeting, in which officials decided to raise interest rates by a mere 2.5 percentage points, a move that slowed the pace of the rate increases and put the lira under further pressure. The decision disappointed some economists and investors who hoped Simsek and Erkan would be more aggressive about tackling inflation.

Erkan on July 27 raised the bank’s year-end inflation forecast to 58% from 22.3%, while predicting that price increases would slow next year. Analysts said the upward revision was an acknowledgment that the bank’s current stance was unlikely to tame inflation, which is running at 38%.

Erkan said the bank would lift rates further, and would adopt a holistic approach to tackling inflation, including using other policy instruments such as quantitative tightening.

Investors and analysts are concerned that Erkan and Simsek don’t have a genuine mandate from Erdogan to do what is needed to stabilize the Turkish economy. Erkan pushed back on those questions on July 27.

“The central bank of the Republic of Turkey is an independent institution,” she said. “We will continue the increases in interest rates alongside the quantitative tightening alongside the selective credit tightening because that’s what the current situation demands.”

Turkey’s economic turmoil has put pressure on the traders at the Bazaar, who have played a central role in the economy since the vast covered marketplace was built during the days of the Ottoman Empire, more than five centuries ago. The small and midsize shops in the Bazaar are part of a sprawling global network of businesses and banks dealing in gold and currency.

Mehmet Akif Turker, a 44-year-old gold trader, sat in his office at the Bazaar on a recent morning, his phone and two slabs of gold on the desk in front of him. The high demand for gold should be good for his business, he explained, but the turmoil in the Turkish economy isn’t.

Turks and other traders must contend with a complex web of rules imposed by the government in recent years to scare up foreign currency and keep the country from tipping into insolvency. Those include a rule that forces businesses like Turker’s to convert 40% of their foreign-currency earnings into lira, traders say.

“In general, in our line of work, crisis makes money,” Turker said. “But when the dollar fluctuates so much and the market is so unstable, it can bring us profit or it can bring us losses. We are exhausted.”

Despite the government’s efforts to bring gold and other assets out from “under the mattresses” of the country’s citizens and into the financial system, Turks continue to pour money into precious metals, traders say. Industry groups estimate that between $200 billion and $300 billion worth of gold is in Turkish citizens’ private possession.

“We are a country that loves gold as a financial instrument,” said Ercan Doner, 39, who owns a shop selling gold coins and jewellery. “In order to stop their money from melting away in case of inflation, people are trying to make use of their gold investments by continuously buying and selling.”

Volatility in the economy isn’t the only driver of gold sales, vendors say. The pandemic also increased business, said Metin Kocatepe, 54, a salesman from another jewellery shop.

“After corona, people’s mentality changed. They’re more relaxed in their shopping. They say ‘maybe tomorrow I’m gonna die, I’ll buy something nice.’”



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Australia is in the midst of a baby recession with preliminary estimates showing the number of births in 2023 fell by more than four percent to the lowest level since 2006, according to KPMG. The consultancy firm says this reflects the impact of cost-of-living pressures on the feasibility of younger Australians starting a family.

KPMG estimates that 289,100 babies were born in 2023. This compares to 300,684 babies in 2022 and 309,996 in 2021, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said weak economic growth often leads to a reduced number of births. In 2023, ABS data shows gross domestic product (GDP) fell to 1.5 percent. Despite the population growing by 2.5 percent in 2023, GDP on a per capita basis went into negative territory, down one percent over the 12 months.

“Birth rates provide insight into long-term population growth as well as the current confidence of Australian families, said Mr Rawnsley. “We haven’t seen such a sharp drop in births in Australia since the period of economic stagflation in the 1970s, which coincided with the initial widespread adoption of the contraceptive pill.”

Mr Rawnsley said many Australian couples delayed starting a family while the pandemic played out in 2020. The number of births fell from 305,832 in 2019 to 294,369 in 2020. Then in 2021, strong employment and vast amounts of stimulus money, along with high household savings due to lockdowns, gave couples better financial means to have a baby. This led to a rebound in births.

However, the re-opening of the global economy in 2022 led to soaring inflation. By the start of 2023, the Australian consumer price index (CPI) had risen to its highest level since 1990 at 7.8 percent per annum. By that stage, the Reserve Bank had already commenced an aggressive rate-hiking strategy to fight inflation and had raised the cash rate every month between May and December 2022.

Five more rate hikes during 2023 put further pressure on couples with mortgages and put the brakes on family formation. “This combination of the pandemic and rapid economic changes explains the spike and subsequent sharp decline in birth rates we have observed over the past four years, Mr Rawnsley said.

The impact of high costs of living on couples’ decision to have a baby is highlighted in births data for the capital cities. KPMG estimates there were 60,860 births in Sydney in 2023, down 8.6 percent from 2019. There were 56,270 births in Melbourne, down 7.3 percent. In Perth, there were 25,020 births, down 6 percent, while in Brisbane there were 30,250 births, down 4.3 percent. Canberra was the only capital city where there was no fall in the number of births in 2023 compared to 2019.

“CPI growth in Canberra has been slightly subdued compared to that in other major cities, and the economic outlook has remained strong,” Mr Rawnsley said. This means families have not been hurting as much as those in other capital cities, and in turn, we’ve seen a stabilisation of births in the ACT.”   

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