An Infometrics report for QBE has stated that house prices are expected to be 24% higher in three years time. As the Rates Blog says this implies that “inflation-adjusted house prices were currently 15% above their long-term trend-line but could get toward 30% above the trend by June 2012″.
The people commenting on the blog seem incensed, but, given the balance of probabilities Infometrics found that 8%pa growth in house prices over the next three years seemed like the most sensible forecast.
There are reasons for this as I mentioned in a comment. But I’m not going into them in detail. Why? These are private forecasts that a client decided to release parts of. This discussion and knowledge is what Infometrics sells, so you would hardly expect them to completely give away their IP? I know that Infometrics is more than willing to spend as much time as possible discussing these forecasts and risks with clients – as that is how the service works.
However, given the admission that the price level seemed high historically I think this may bear some relationship to the “imbalances” that they discussed publicly.
Obvious disclaimer: I work at Infometrics, as I say.
Update: Not PC makes some good points. I agree that the indication of this sort of house price increase signals other issues – it shouldn’t be taken as “good news”.
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TVHE » Breakfast tomorrow: Defending the 24% increase in house prices says:
August 26, 2009 at 5:04 pm (UTC 12 )
[...] will be on Breakfast tomorrow (at 6.50am) defending Infometrics pick of a 24% increase in house prices over the next three [...]
TVHE » The 24% price pick says:
August 27, 2009 at 3:04 pm (UTC 12 )
[...] were supposed to be a number of important points made today as I can finally cover the house price pick. Here is a list of what I was supposed to [...]