Faint glimmer of hope but train still in the tunnel

This comes after ASB’s Housing Confidence Survey to the end of October, released on Friday, showed the housing market moved out of the red, thanks largely to Aucklanders.

The latest confidence survey results suggest people are seeing a faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel after a year’s worth of house price declines. The ‘is it a good or bad time to buy a house” responses swung back – just – in “good territory because of a bout of optimism from Aucklanders.

Price expectations moved up fractionally though remain distinctly negative. And the large group of people expecting interest rates will rise did get a bit smaller, the survey results show.

There is, however, the possibility that a train lurks. The survey results were taken just before the Reserve Bank put on an express service for the Official Cash Rate (OCR), lifting it by 75 basis points in November and talking even tougher on inflation.