Commonwealth Bank senior economist Michael Workman has suggested the Australian property market is yet to see the true impact of rate cuts made by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) at the end of 2011.
His comments came as home loan approvals were revealed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to have fallen by 1.2 per cent in January, the first fall the market has seen for ten months.
Mr Workman told the Australian the RBA is unlikely to be overly concerned by the negative data.
"In a general sense, we're still looking at a very gradual pick-up in lending into the housing market as a result of the interest rate cuts," he suggested.
Given the relatively small amount of construction activity in the country at the moment the lack of home loans is not too much of a problem, concluded Mr Workman.
RP Data analyst Cameron Kusher recently suggested in Property Observer that the number of people who purchased Australian property hit its lowest level since 1996 over the course of 2011.
Posted by Steve Douglas
