Australian housing risk ‘overstated’ and central bank unlikely to cut rates, says Treasurer
Sydney house prices up 14pc this year, compared with 9pc across the country’s major cities, according to CoreLogic
Australia’s Treasurer Scott Morrison has insisted the debate on Australia’s housing market is prone to exaggeration, even as Sydney property prices rise anew, and indicated he does not see much appetite at the central bank for further cuts in the nation’s already record-low interest rates.
There’s “no evidence” the property market is overvalued outside “arguably some pockets if X and Y and Z happened, and they are as yet have not happened,” he said in an interview at the International Monetary Fund’s headquarters in Washington.
“So I think these risks can be overstated. They can be really overstated.”
A three-year surge in Australian home prices paused at the end of 2015 after banks raised mortgage rates to offset the cost of holding more capital. The market is taking off again as a growing population tries to squeeze into too few properties.
Sydney house prices are up 14 per cent this year through September, compared with 9 per cent across the nation’s major cities, according to CoreLogic Inc.
I don’t detect any great sort of enthusiasm for any further easing
The market has been fueled by an easing cycle begun late in 2011 that brought the cash rate to 1.5 per cent as the central bank sought to counter the drag from plunging mining investment.