For the sixth consecutive quarter, people remain optimistic about house prices. A net 33 per cent of respondents expect house prices to increase, although that’s down from 44 per cent over the same period a year earlier. That decline in optimism appears to have mostly happened late in the last quarter, with price optimists dropping from a net 37 per cent in December last year to a net 28 per cent in January this year. More surprising was a drop in the number of survey respondents expecting interest rates to decline, with a net 51 per cent expecting further declines compared to a net 57 per cent in the previous survey for the three months to October 2024. However, the latest survey was undertaken before February’s Reserve Bank cut to the official cash rate to 3.75 per cent and its outlook for the year.