Australia's home prices to grow modestly

Home prices in Australia are expected to rise modestly as prospective home buyers are still cautious about taking on additional debt following the global financial crisis, said economists from two Australian major banks on Wednesday. Speaking at the Bloomberg Australia Economic Summit 2013 in Sydney on Wednesday, Westpac Banking Corp chief economist Bill Evans said the housing market would improve in line with growth in incomes. "The housing market will improve but it won't improve to the point that people are becoming over-leveraged or we'd start to see real issues in our loan book," he told the summit. "Australian consumers can actually gear up quite a lot but I don't see them doing it, because fundamentally they are still scared," he said. National Australia Bank chief economist Alan Oster said the housing market had recovered from its lows in 2012. "Clearly the market is starting to improve and we would expect it to increase moderately as we go forward," he said at the summit. Home prices across Australia's capital cities rose by 2.8 percent on average in the first quarter of 2013, according to property research company RP Data.