The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed Monday that property prices are still surging upwards as house price index jumped by 4.8 percent in the March quarter and seemingly discounting the expected impact of the successive interest rate hikes.

According to AAP, house price index in December 2009 was at 5.1 percent but in the year leading to March, the index soared 20.0 percent with the median market forecast upswing of 3.0 percent in the March quarter, for a year-on-year increase of 18.0 percent.

The ABS figures identified Melbourne as the stellar city with its home prices registering peaks of 6.7 percent in the March quarter and 27.7 percent in the year, though analysts are quick to remind that the data should not be taken at face value since ABS measures could be subject to exaggerated price swings.

CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian said that the data only underscored that the housing sector took the recent rate hikes in strides as he stressed that economic observers need not be surprised by the five consecutive rate hikes inability to impact property prices.

He asserted that "property prices are still seeing strong growth and it's important to realise that this isn't going to be solved by raising interest rates."

Debt future markets are projecting a 64 percent possibility that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will lift the cash rate by 4.5 percent come Tuesday, as Mr Sebastian said that housing issues must be observed too beyond the central bank's monetary policies.

He said that the ABS' data would hardly affect RBA's board decision as more interests are being trained on reducing taxes for the property sector and dismantling barriers that will encourage entry and participation of more investors and developers.

Mr Sebastian said that outside of the property indicators, retail income is generally weak and building approvals have been weak too over the past few months and more so leading to a weak housing finance.

He said that "there are indications that it's not all onwards and upwards for the Australian economy and you've still got those concerns out of Greece reverberating through the European zone."

The AAP report said that CommSec is predicting that the RBA will maintain the current rates in effect until June, yet Mr Sebastian has admitted that "It's probably still a 50/50 call."