Moreover, lower interest rates on their new issuance have resulted in the average duration of their debt rising by even more. The first two panels show that is true of most sovereigns. The Australian governments, Commonwealth and State, have proceeded along this path.
Hence, house prices in Alberta and in Western Australia had a large run-up compared with most other regions in the respective countries (Graph 5). More recently, dwelling prices generally have tended to soften. In Australia’s case, the ratio of the median dwelling price to average household income has declined quite noticeably since 2003, without a very large absolute decline in housing prices (Graph 6).