Housing again flavour of month

Confidence in the housing market has improved in ASB's quarterly survey, with six out of 10 respondents considering it a good time to buy.

But the bank's chief economist, Nick Tuffley, said that while the market was showing signs of bottoming out, that was a far cry from saying it was about to take off again.

Many of those surveyed expect house prices to continue to fall. But that view became less emphatic over the three months of the survey, Tuffley said.

Expectations about interest rates, like interest rates themselves, plummeted last year but in the three months to April that moderated and by April itself responses were evenly split between those expecting rates to rise and those expecting further falls.

"The sharp spike in long-term fixed mortgage rates in late March no doubt swayed respondents' views," he said.

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Posted: 27 May 2009

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