Australian house prices may not fall as far as had been predicted and should reach the bottom later this year, an economist says.
AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver says developments in recent weeks suggest house prices could bottom earlier and higher than expected.
"The combination of the removal of the threat to property tax concessions, earlier interest rate cuts, financial help for first home buyers and APRA relaxing its seven per cent interest rate test points to house prices bottoming earlier and higher than we have been expecting," he said on Thursday.
AMP Capital now expects capital city average house prices to have a top-to-bottom fall of 12 per cent, rather than 15 per cent.
House prices have already fallen almost 10 per cent from their September 2017 high.
