Media has gone overboard on the forecast by the Commonwealth Bank that property prices will fall 10% in 2024.
We can rest assured that it won’t happen – because the people making these forecasts have a track record of getting their forecasts wrong, almost every time.
The Commonwealth Bank’s latest prediction on prices comes from head of economics Gareth Aird. Media assumes they’re credible because CBA is a Big 4 bank and our biggest mortgage lender.
But, based on his track record, Aird is one of the nation’s worst forecasters.
In March 2020, as the pandemic first took hold, he forecast property prices would drop 10% over six months and 20% in the next year, led by steep falls in Sydney and Melbourne.
But in the next 12 months house prices overall rose 7.5%, with Sydney up 8%, Adelaide 9%, Hobart 13%, Canberra 14%, Darwin 16% and Regional Australia 13%).
At the start of this year, Aird and the CBA forecast house prices would rise 9% in 2021 and unit prices 5%. So far in 2021 house prices have jumped 21% and unit prices 13% (19% in the regions).
