House price growth may be about to slow even further, if the views of Australians are anything to go by.

As seen in the chart below, there’s a loose relationship between annual house price growth, based on data from CoreLogic, and the proportion of respondents in the monthly Westpac-MI consumer sentiment survey nominating real estate as the wisest place to invest new savings.

While it’s not a perfect relationship between the two, including in recent years, the Westpac survey has tended to lead price movements in the housing cycle.

With current sentiment towards real estate continuing to bump along near record lows, it suggests annual house price growth, already running at just 1.5% last week, could be about to get even slower.

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