Unemployment

Employment is a key factor impacting apartment prices.

"So what could trigger an overdue shift in rhetoric? Watch the jobless rate. Economists and the RBA forecast it will drift towards 6 per cent. While I think there is scope for it to soften in the near term, I suspect it could start falling again in 2013. This would be a game-changer. An unambiguous decline in the jobless rate, propelled by an ageing population that shrinks the pool of productive labour, will force the RBA to remove its extreme stimulus."  See AFR