What happens if sellers refuse to lower their prices?

Vietnam's housing bubble is an especially over inflated. Average prices to average incomes are at a 25x multiple. 25! In contrast the median multiple (not exactly the same measure, but similar) in Vancouver is 10x. Sellers have not lowered their prices in the face of plummeting demand. Since 2010 they have been stubborn. The result? A Frozen Market. No thaw expected in Vietnam's frozen housing market

Dang Hung Vo said a paradox in the property market is that supply of high-cost housing units has overwhelmed demand, leading to high inventories and bad debts, while there is a severe lack of low-cost housing units. Only 1,500 condominiums were sold in Hanoi in the first quarter, according to property firm CBRE. While that’s a five-fold increase from the 279 sold in the same period two years ago, it’s still down from the peak in 2009, when more than 15,000 units were sold in the capital city.

Taiwan Election Issue High Real Estate Prices Addressed with Luxury Tax

New Taxes in Taiwan expected to pull down prices.

Taipei taxes luxury

Even the prospect of the tax changes had an impact before being approved by legislators, with the number of property market transactions plunging by double digits. New Taipei City, which mainly consists of suburbs and satellite cities surrounding Taipei, experienced a decline of as much as 30%. As a consequence, home prices dipped 3% to 6% in different parts of the island last month. Potential buyers expect house prices to drop much further, possibly by as much as 5% to 10% in Taipei City and by as much as 20% in New Taipei City.

According to Chang Chin-Oh, a reduction of residential property prices of 30 to 40% is reasonable, depending on the location in the island, which means a meaningful price reduction has yet to get underway. Homebuyers who actually want to move in as opposed to making profit out of their purchase should wait until at least the end of the year to see the actual effects of the new tax, he said.

hattip: Aussie Roy at greaterfool

Chinese Buying Up the World's Shelter

More mainland Chinese investing in Singapore property

Mainland Chinese buyers are now the second largest group of foreigners who buy homes in Singapore, falling behind to Malaysian buyers - who have typically dominated foreign ownership of property here.

Chinese buyers accounted for 23 per cent of foreign buyers in the fourth quarter of 2010, up 3 percentage points from the previous quarter.

How much of this money is leaving China legally? And will a future cash-strapped government try to track it down?

Taiwan Housing Bubble, Price to Income Ratio at 11

China Times: Warning signs of housing bubble

According to the results of a survey conducted by the Taiwan Real Estate Research Center, housing prices in Taipei City have soared 73 percent over the past five years, but the average household income has risen by only 1.2 percent.

As a result, the housing price-to-income ratio in the city has increased to 11. Worldwide, the ratio is lower, except in Hong Kong where it is 11.4.

Construction Loan Losses Lead to Bank Suspensions in Korea

Anything in the Asia region is of interest. Any sign of weakness could cause capital to stop flowing into the zone.

Officials Seek To Head Off Bank Run

Although the government will guarantee deposits up to 50 million won, it could take some time before customers of suspended banks to get their money back. The government says it will speed along the process by starting to pay qualifying depositors up to 15 million won of their deposits from two weeks after the suspension, as opposed to the customary three weeks.

Savings banks account for a relatively small portion of the financial sector, making it unlikely their woes to seriously harm the broader economy. Still, the government is trying to head off any systemic risks that could be caused by the ailing banks, and they have continued to assure the public that vast majority of the savings banks are fiscally sound and that overreacting to troubles of a few bad banks will harm everyone involved.

50 million won is 45,000 USD