The housing price booms in Sydney and Melbourne are not over yet - but probably will be within a year, according to a survey of property market professionals.
The survey by the NSW division of the Australian Property Institute in October asked a range of valuers, funds managers, property analysts and financiers how long the upward trend in prices in the two surging markets would last.
For Sydney, 44 per cent thought it would run another six months, while 33 per cent expected another year.
For Melbourne, respondents were a little less optimistic for the short term, with half expecting the rises to go for only another six months and a further third tipping them to run for a full year.
But for both Sydney and Melbourne, only six per cent expected the boom to run for another two years and none predicted it to go beyond that.
The survey also canvassed opinions on whether the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane markets were "in a bubble", leaving the respondents to decide for themselves how to define a bubble.
For Brisbane, where the latest Corelogic RP Data home value index rose only 3.8 per cent in the past year, 70 per cent though the the market was neither in, nor entering, a bubble.
For Melbourne, only 44 per cent thought the market was not in a bubble.
Prices in Melbourne rose an average of 12.8 per cent over the year to October, according to CoreLogic RP Data.
In a result that might surprise anyone watching the Sydney market, where prices rose 15.6 per cent over the past year, half of the respondents thought the market was not in a bubble.
The results follow a survey of the general public by CoreLogic RP Data and TEG Rewards last week, which showed a similar pattern of expected price rises despite a recognition of the risks ahead.
That survey showed that while 68 per cent of people believe the national housing market is "vulnerable to a significant correction in values", only 16 per cent expected prices to fall over the coming year, while 41 per cent expecting prices to rise.