AUSTRALIAN housing market activity won’t recover from the recent slowdown for at least a year as dwindling household incomes and soaring unemployment hammer demand, causing home prices to fall this year and next, a recent poll of analysts showed.

Now in its first recession in three decades, Australia’s economy is expected to recover slowly even though the spread of the coronavirus is largely under control and most businesses have reopened. Still, policymakers expect unemployment to rise to about 10 percent from 6.8 percent in August.

That forecast came despite aggressive monetary easing from the Reserve Bank of Australia, which has so far chopped its key interest rate to an all-time low of 0.25 percent.

The Sept. 16-28 poll of 12 property analysts showed average home prices would fall 4.5 percent this year and another 2.8 percent next. The market is forecast to recover 3.4 percent in 2022.

“The deterioration in household income will be the biggest driver of weakness, but elevated uncertainty, much lower population growth and weak investor appetite will all weigh on house prices,” said Felicity Emmett, senior economist at ANZ.(SD-Agencies)