They are affected by everything from international capital markets to land values, to government policy. In addition, VAT, local government policy, approvals processes, mezzanine finance rates, property price expectations, vacancy taxes and development levies all play a role. Some of these appear to be unintended consequences, others represent carefully considered trade-offs between policy goals.
In addition, the economy has recently been under downward pressure from an outflow of income due to rising commodity prices. On the price front, although the year-on-year rate of change in the CPI has risen to around 2 percent, this is mainly due to an increase in energy prices.