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CBA boss expects a 10-12% drop in housing prices

Yesterday, the Commonwealth Bank delivered a full-year cash profit of $7.3 billion, along with welcome news that the property market had been more resilient than first feared.

In May, CBA chief executive Matt Comyn detailed a worst-case scenario, in which values would drop by 30 per cent. Yesterday, he was more optimistic.

“I think a reduction…in the order of 10 to 12 per cent is still a reasonable assumption,” Mr Comyn revised.

“We do have an expectation that in some areas, particularly in inner-city areas, there has been downward pressure on rental yields, so we think that that’s going to weigh on house prices.

“We would say overall, and looking at the numbers in the last few months, the housing market has been more robust than perhaps we would have anticipated from March.”

The bank also revealed modelling predicting the national unemployment rate will spike at 9 per cent this year, before dropping to 7.5 per cent by December 2021.

“There’s going to need to be some policies and investments at both the federal and state level to support greater jobs creation so we can bring that unemployment rate down,” Mr Comyn explained.

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Nathan Jolly

Nathan Jolly was an in-house journalist with Elite Agent. He worked with the company from July 2020 to December 2020.