More than 60 percent of Australian consumers were in anticipation of a surge in home prices over the next 12 months, which is actually improvement from previous months' expectations in the current year.

In a new Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer house price survey made public on Friday, the index slid to 51.1 in October as against to the July reading of 58.8 and way off the mark when compared to the January level of 80.3.

However, the latest figures were relatively better according to Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan as up to 70 percent of those polled in July believed that house prices would soar further.

Those numbers reached their peaks in January and April when 84.4 percent of consumers queried were in agreement that home affordability would become more remote for most Australians.

Mr Hassan observed that the Friday results were in contradictions to market projections in light of the policy rate pause implemented by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) since May this year.

He pointed out that "consumers have continued to pare back their expectations for house prices despite interest rates staying on hold since May."

Experts said that the gloomy outlook by Australian consumers may be attributed to the weak sale returns posted by the property industry recently.

They added that the October expectations were leading to an average expected price surge of 2.6 percent for the coming 12 months, which is a decline from the 3.6 percent and 5.7 percent posted respectively in July and April.

And Hassan could only agree as he cited most property owners were holding off for now in divesting their assets and this due to the fact that "most still expect prices to rise and those looking to sell properties will be more inclined to postpone selling until a later date than accept materially lower price offers now."