Most Filipinos expect inflation to continue to rise

Most Fiipinos see inflation rising over the next year and do not expect the pace of price increases to normalize anytime soon, according to a survey by Ipsos.

In its latest Cost of Living Monitor, Ipsos found that 80% of Filipinos see the rate of inflation to rise in the next year.

“While economists point out that inflation — and interest rates — have fallen in many countries, you might assume that consumers should be feeling more positive by now about their own financial situation and more optimistic about where their country’s economy is headed in 2025,” Ipsos Chief Executive Officer Ben Page said.

“In fact, they are the opposite. The legacy of high inflation over the past few years is that an expectation of price rises is now hard-wired into the public consciousness,” he added.

The Philippines’ outcome is also much higher than the 65% overall average across 32 countries.

“This is something that is felt across the board. In 21 of the 32 countries surveyed people are more likely to think prices will rise at a faster rate than they did earlier this year,” Ipsos said.

Most Filipinos think that inflation has yet to normalize, the survey showed, with 28% expecting inflation to never return to normal. On the other hand, 27% see prices normalizing after next year, within the next year (26%), within the next six months (5%), and within the next three months (7%).

Only 6% of respondents said that inflation had already normalized.

Inflation quickened to 2.5% in November from 2.3% in October as food prices rose after a series of typhoons hit the country. In the 11-month period, headline inflation averaged 3.2%.

This year so far, inflation has settled within the 2-4% range, except for the 4.4% spike in July.

The central bank expects inflation to settle at 3.1% this year, 3.2% in 2025 and 3.4% in 2026. However, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has said that the risks to the inflation outlook for next year until 2026 have shifted to the upside.

“While inflation rates are going down, people are not feeling it in the way policy makers and central banks would have hoped,” Ipsos said. “People expect price rises across all areas of spending, from utilities to food.”

Globally, 70% of respondents attribute the state of the global economy as the biggest contributor to the rising cost of living. This is followed by government policies (69%), interest rates (66%), businesses making excessive profits (62%) and the Russia-Ukraine war (58%).

Meanwhile, 75% of Filipinos expect interest rates to rise over the next year.

The BSP began its easing cycle in August this year, delivering a total of 50 basis points (bps) worth of rate cuts so far. This brought the benchmark to 6%.

The Monetary Board could deliver another 25-bp cut at its final policy review of the year on Dec. 19.

“There is often a time lag between inflation rates subsiding and consumer confidence returning. But this time things feel rather different. What we are now seeing in many countries is a rise in the number of people who say they are financially struggling,” according to Ipsos.

The survey also showed that 10% of Filipinos expect their own standard of living to fall over the next 12 months.

In terms of financial management, only 37% of Filipinos are “doing alright.” This is compared to the respondents that said they are “just about getting by” (26%), “finding it quite difficult” (20%), “finding it very difficult” (9%), and “living comfortably” (9%).

Meanwhile, 48% of Filipinos see the economy as being currently in a recession, as far as they are aware. On the other hand, 28% say the opposite while 23% do not know.

TAX CUTS

“Across 32 countries people say they prefer tax cuts even if it means less money for public services, over spending more and paying greater taxes,” Ipsos said.

“However, this masks big differences across countries. Türkiye, Romania and the Philippines back tax cuts, while Indonesia and Sweden want better public services.”

The survey found more than half (52%) of Filipinos prefer that their personal taxes be cut even if it means there will be less government spending on public services.

The survey also found 70% of Filipinos expect the taxes that they pay to rise over the next year.

The Department of Finance  has said it does not plan to introduce new taxes this year and potentially until the end of the Marcos administration, apart from those already pending in Congress.

The department’s priority tax measures include the value-added tax on digital service providers, excise taxes on single-use plastics and pickup trucks, the rationalization of the mining fiscal regime, and the motor vehicle road user’s charge, among others.

Source: Business World

UK homebuyers going ‘bonkers for bathrooms’

Where once a privy out the back sufficed, now the children need their own loos too

“I don’t know about you, but we probably had one bathroom between five or six of us when I was growing up,” says Robin Chatwin, an estate agent. “It’s certainly very different now.”

These days, at least in the comfortable corner of south-west London where Chatwin heads the residential properties sector for the agent Savills, buyers seeking a family home look for an en suite bathroom for the principal bedroom “at the very least”, he says, and ideally for their children’s bedrooms, too.

“I’ve worked in my office for 35 years now and there’s been a massive change. Before it was just all about bedrooms, and if there was one or two bathrooms, everyone was very happy. But everyone’s view has changed.

“Frankly, the more the merrier is what people would say. If they could have an en suite for every bedroom, they’d be very happy.”

In the 1960s a quarter of houses still lacked indoor WCs or bathrooms. 

Mark Breffit, a senior adviser for top-end sales at the agent Hamptons private office, agrees. “Everyone seems to be bonkers for bathrooms – and this trend is no way confined to prime central London.” Even in Victorian and Edwardian terraces, he says, “the desire for a first-floor suite with a walk-in wardrobe and en suite is increasingly prevalent”.

A cloakroom here, an en suite there – it is a situation the Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud considers ridiculous. In an interview with Radio Times, McCloud is especially irritated by “houses with more toilets than physical occupants. Why do people judge the status of a house by how many toilets you can offer your guests? It’s absurd.”

Most people, of course, do not have unlimited space or funds to put an extra loo on every floor – and in plenty of properties, particularly houses in multiple occupation, where as many as five renters may share a bathroom, the lengthy queue outside the bathroom door is still a daily ritual.

But among homeowners, British toilet inflation is not confined to the buyers with the biggest budgets, according to Chatwin, who says those looking for two-bed flats now frequently ask for a second bathroom to help rent the spare room.

Recent research by Savills found that across the market, British buyers are prepared to pay a significant premium for extra bathrooms, with asking prices per square foot 20% higher for homes with two bathrooms compared with those with just one. Strikingly, an extra bathroom in a one-bedroom flat adds significantly more value per square foot than an extra reception room, the estate agent says.

What is going on? The location and quantity of one’s toilet facilities may be an architectural problem, but it has always been a marker of social status, says Melanie Backe-Hansen, a historian and broadcaster specialising in the history of houses.

Before the mid-19th century, she notes, few houses in Britain had an indoor toilet, their occupants relying on privies, earth closets and buckets until a technological leap in plumbing revolutionised the business of doing one’s business. Toilets, at least for the aspirant middle class, moved indoors – although, notes Backe-Hansen, “in a lot of the larger houses in the country, they didn’t have indoor toilets for many years because they had servants to deal with it”.

Ideally, many people would have a bathroom on every floor.

For today’s elite, bathroom showiness is no less prevalent: a house bought by Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez during their recent brief marriage reportedly had 10 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms. The US habit of listing properties by their bedroom and bathroom numbers, seen in luxury property shows such as Netflix’s Selling Sunset, may also have influenced the growing trend in Britain, Chatwin believes.

But if status is clearly a factor in increasing bathroom numbers as household incomes have risen, comfort is, too. The most remarkable thing about our domestic toilet habits, says Backe-Hansen, is the speed at which they have changed. In 1967, a quarter of homes in England and Wales still lacked either a bath or shower, an indoor WC, or a sink with hot and cold water. By 1991 that figure was 1%.

“It wasn’t long ago that a lot of housing didn’t have internal bathrooms, or just had a loo out the back of the kitchen,” she says. “That expectation we now have of fixtures and fittings, and all the lovely shiny bathrooms that we have now – they were much less common only 50 … years ago. Things have drastically changed.”

Source: The Guardian

Businesses, consumers more bullish for Q4

Businesses and consumers are more optimistic for the fourth quarter, according to the latest surveys conducted by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

Redentor Paolo Alegre Jr., officer-in-charge of the BSP Department of Economic Statistics, said in an online press briefing that the overall business confidence index (CI) for the fourth quarter increased to 56.8 percent from the previous quarter’s 43.7 percent.

“The current-quarter CI has considerably improved since the peak of the COVID-19 effects in the third quarter of 2020, when it registered at -5.3 percent,” Alegre said. 

“However, it has not yet reached its pre-pandemic average level of 41.6 percent and has just been hovering above 30 percent since then,” he said.

Based on the 2024 third quarter Business Expectations Survey (BES), Alegre said the respondents attributed their increased optimism to expectations of higher demand for products and services during the holidays, lower interest rates, easing inflation and better economic conditions. 

For the current quarter, business sentiment remained optimistic as the index inched up to 32.9 percent from 32.1 percent previously. 

He said the decrease in the percentage of pessimists was driven by lower inflation, seasonal uptick in business activities due to the start of the new school term and the pre-holiday inventory stocking by retailers, as well as the expansion of business operations.

For the next 12 months, Alegre said businesses were more upbeat as the confidence index rose to 58 percent from the previous quarter’s 56.5 percent.

The more optimistic outlook for the next 12 months was attributed to expectations of sustained strong demand for products and services, business expansions, lower inflation as well as the launch of new and improved products and services.

Likewise, Alegre reported that Filipino consumers turned optimistic for the fourth quarter as the confidence index stood at 0.7 percent, a turnaround from the -0.4 percent in the previous survey. 

“The respondents attributed their optimism to expectations of higher income, additional sources of income, more available jobs, increase in salary and additional working family members,” he said. 

Consumer sentiment also improved for the current quarter as the confidence index (CI) turned less negative at -15.6 percent from -20.5 percent previously, results of the 2024 third quarter Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) showed.

According to the respondents, their less pessimistic sentiment for the third quarter was due to expectations of higher income and remittances, additional sources of income, permanent employment and more available jobs as well as additional working family members.

Meanwhile, the consumer confidence for the next 12 months was less optimistic as the CI declined to 9.9 percent from 13.5 percent, Alegre said. 

“Respondents attributed their guarded optimism for the next 12 months to the faster increase in the prices of goods and services, fewer available jobs, lower income and perceived pervasiveness of corruption in the government,” he said. 

A total of 1,525 businesses participated in the BES, which was conducted from July 5 to Aug 27. Meanwhile, around 5,335 households were interviewed for the CES from July 1 to 12. 

consumer expectations q4.

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Source: Philstar and BSP