» Australia Leads World in House Price Recovery

According to the economic report by Canadian bank Scotiabank, Australia has taken over Canada as the country with the best recovery of residential house prices among twelve developed countries. During the first quarter of 2010, Australia took the top spot despite the interest rate hike by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Adrienne Warren, Senior Economist for Scotia Economics, stated that the steady economic boom and bullish labour market have significant contributions to the increase property prices and sales. The rising Australian economy registered a 17.1 percent increase in inflation-adjusted median property prices from the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010.

This rate clearly tramples the 11.4 percent increase from the previous quarter. Because of which, Warren added that affordability, low interest rate figures and property purchase incentives from the government proved to be the backbones for the increase in property sales by stabilizing prices after the property price downfall in 2008 and 2009.

Among the developed countries that were included in the Scotiabank report, the property market of Spain proved to be the weakest for its property prices declined from the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010 by an average of six percent.