Paul Bloxham, Chief Economist for Australia at HSBC and former RBA economist has labelled the current housing market as appreciating quickly but not in bubble...

Paul Bloxham, Chief Economist for Australia at HSBC and former RBA economist has labelled the current housing market as appreciating quickly but not in bubble territory. As a RBA economist, he helped devise the strategy to restrain housing price and credit growth a decade ago. He said prices are high, but not unusually high when compared with similar countries. As we have said many times before, Australia does not currently have a housing bubble. Bloxham believes that the current rises are a recovery from years of declines or anaemic growth and part of the economic recovery that the RBA expects. However, not everyone is so optimistic with Tom Kennedy from JPMorgan saying that unemployment is expected to rise whilst first home buyers continue to be squeezed out of the market. (VIEW LINK)