- Glenn Stevens, RBA Governor
The Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens welcomed signs of house price growth cooling in Melbourne and Sydney thanks to timely regulatory measures on lending standards. Mr Stevens said that it was too soon to judge whether the turbulence that roiled financial markets early this year has come to an end, but he underlined Australia's resilience against any potential shock. The local financial system has been strengthening despite a sudden slowdown in China and uncertainty over the effect of European and Japanese monetary policy.
In the meantime, a report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that house-price inflation in Australia continued to wane last quarter, with prices climbing at the slowest pace since the September quarter 2012. Australia's House Price Index increased 0.2% in the final quarter of 2015 after the 2.0% rise in the preceding three-month period. On an annualized basis, house prices surged 8.7% in the three months through December, with Sydney recording the largest annual price advance of 13.9%, followed by Melbourne where prices soared 9.6%. The steep slowdown in house price growth adds to other recent signs that the property market is slowing down after years of rapid activity.
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