Home Rush - 1700 People A Week Migrating To Melbourne

• From:Herald Sun
• December 06, 2009 9:19PM
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• HOMEBUYERS are shrugging off the pain of interest rate rises in a race to secure houses before Christmas.
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• But the sting of further interest rate increases next year is expected to take the heat out of Melbourne’s recent rampaging property prices.

  Auctioneers are on track to net $11.1 billion from 18,500 sales for the year, up from $10 billion last year, the Real Estate Institute of Victoria has revealed.

  Clearance rates rebounded from 78 per cent to 82 per cent at the weekend as 745 homes worth $550 million went under the hammer.

  The healthy weekend auction results came just days after lenders responded to the Reserve Bank’s .25 per cent hike in the official cash rates.

  Westpac incensed customers by quickly jacking up home loan rates by a whopping .45 per cent. The Commonwealth raised rates by .38 per cent, ANZ by .35 per cent and NAB by .25.

  REIV spokesman Robert Larocca said that despite the financial whack, rates were still comparatively low.

  And Melbourne’s population boom, which was rising by about 1700 people a week, meant housing demand would continue to outstrip supply.

  Mr Larocca said the market had gathered steam over the past six months as confidence in the economy returned.