RBA UPDATE | Effective May 8, 2024

Following its two-day board meeting, The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) opted to hold the official cash rate at 4.35% for its third consecutive month. This decision came about because the board does not yet believe the time is right to move the official cash rate, despite the latest inflation data coming in higher than expected.

The board explained, “in the near term, inflation is forecast to be higher because of the recent rise in domestic petrol prices, and higher than expected services price inflation, which is now forecast to decline more slowly over the rest of the year.”

Property prices have hit yet another record high, with capital city house prices and units seeing value increases. According to Domain, capital city median house prices jumped 1% to $1.112 million, while capital city units rose 0.6% to a median of $637,578 over the quarter. For the combined regional areas, house prices fell 1.1% in the March quarter to $590,378. At the same time, units saw prices rise 2.6% to $465,711.Oxford Economics Senior Economist, Maree Kilroy said the unprecedented increase in population numbers, led by mass immigration, is a catalyst for the uptick in prices, whereby despite higher interest rates, “demand eventually won out.”#RBA #cashrate #may #onhold #interestrates #housing #property #insights #mortgagebrokers