Not so gloomy?

A recent Australian Financial Review article (16 April 2008) has the headline - "Gloom on house prices may be misplaced."

"In Australia, the long-term trend is very much the reverse [of the United States] - not enough housing stock to meet strong underlying demand for housing. This is the trend in both the home purchase and the home rental markets. In the short term, buyers are keeping their powder dry, following aggressive interest rate rises of the past six months. But this temporary stalling will do nothing to deflect the pent-up demand for Australian residential property that has been building over recent years - or the chronic under supply of housing stock that has developed since 2000. ... That said, there is a growing view that interest rates in Australia have now peaked. If this is right, the next leg up in residential property could come sooner than you think."