Stephen Koukoulas

Yeah, they'll take a bit of time to come through, but the key things for me will be a continuation of the upswing in dwelling construction activity.

That's important.

What will be important is to see whether there's a bit of a moderation in price pressures coming through.

Will we see investors staying out of the market, therefore putting further downward pressure on prices?

to the benefit of first home buyers, still taking advantage of the 5% deposit guarantee, which is part of what we've seen in a bit of a pickup in first home buyers since that scheme came into effect in October last year.

So I'll be looking at things like the number of first home buyers who are actually tapping the market now.

we're getting into the market.

Unfortunately, we don't get high frequency data on home ownership in Australia.

Usually the annual average is about 110,000 per annum.

If that number gets up to 130,000, 135,000, 140,000 per annum, then that's an implied success.

The other part of the solution, again, is not just a month or six months of weak house prices, but a couple of years where house prices don't do much.

They might even drift down.

If that happens too, it's a sign that the supply and demand imbalances are coming back into play, improving affordability, as we were mentioning, even with modest wage increases, flat house prices improves affordability.

And that's what we've been crying out for for decades, to be frank.

Thank you, Ruby.

bleary-eyed, but I always love a budget.

Nothing will keep me away from looking at the budget papers all day and all night.

Well, the first point is Treasury have got quite significant differences in their macro forecasts than the Reserve Bank put out just a week ago in the Statement of Monetary Policy when they hiked interest rates.

So, for example, the critical one that underpins everything else in the Treasury forecast is an assumption

that productivity growth will be higher than the RBA is thinking.