House prices begin to fall...
Back on 19th March when we first looked at the impact of the intensifying shutdown of the Australian economy on the housing market (see here) we concluded that the impact would depend on how high unemployment rose. Our base case was a recession that saw unemployment rise to around 7.5% and would push average home prices down around 5%, but the risk was that a deeper downturn with say 10% unemployment could see a 20% fall in prices. Subsequent government support measures along with an earlier reopening of the economy have reduced the risk of worse case scenarios for home prices.