John Symond, from Aussie, looks at consumer confidence, which either drives economies forwards or backwards. And Australia is fortunate where we’ve had a flood of excellent positive news over the last 2 or 3 months and that has resulted in confidence creeping back into the economy and this is one of the reasons why I reflect the reserve bank wont rush in to start increasing interest rates – because theres one thing that stops consumers in their tracks and thats the though of interest rates going up. Yes, interest rates will need to go up. I dont reflect its going to happen anytime soon, contrary to other predictions. John’s personal view is the inner bank will be very careful before it starts increasing interest rates but Im hopeful that that wont start until into 2010 and then well have some gradual increases and hey, interest rates might go up 2%, 2.5% over the next couple of years but those increases will still result in very affordable interest rates. Youve got to be careful, dont assume these historically low rates will last forever, they wont, nothing does last forever. Factor in an extra couple of percent when you work out your serviceability capabilities and providing you do that, and buy the right property in the right location, for the right reasons, you can do very well.