Rich Harvey

One interesting thing, we talked about consumer sentiment before, and the Westpac Melbourne Institute also produce what's called a time to buy dwelling index.

And that sort of is an indication of when people expect it's a good time to buy or not such a good time to buy.

But the chief economist of Westpac, Bill Evans, recently pointed out that the index is still well above 100.

It's dropped down from 121 points down to 111 points, but it's still over 100, which indicates that more consumers expect prices to rise rather than to fall.

So there's a more negative index in New South Wales and Victoria, but a much higher index in Queensland.

So what all of that tends to indicate is that markets tend to overshoot or undershoot expectations.

But the trick for the savvy home buyer here is to really just take a long term view.

And I think the other key point, Craig, just to point out about what's going to dominate is that data that CoreLogic put out is typically two to three months out of date.

Market conditions change a lot faster on the ground than what is reported in the media.

So, for example, CoreLogic the other day came out saying in their daily index that in the last quarter, property prices declined 2.7%.

But to be honest, Craig, what we're seeing on the ground, prices have already dropped 10%, even 15% in some of the suburbs, particularly on the northern beaches.

So, I think the message here is that there's not one factor.

There's not one property market.

There's not one particular property type.

There's a whole confluence of factors that's either pushing the market forward or pushing the market backwards.

That's right.

Wow.

But that's off the bat, Craig, of a 38% increase over the COVID period.

Sure.

So, even if it's come back 15%, you're still up 23%.