In short hand. Lowering rates means there is a slowing economy...

In short hand. Lowering rates means there is a slowing economy or imminent risk of such, which indicates pressure on the employment market, and causes a more conservative outlook by potential buyers, especially if they also reason the economy is slowing, thus they will wait to see if there are lower housing prices, which is deflationary, which is also self sustaining once started. And which would be a disaster for many banks that have had a policy of lending too much against the value of property - all banks I believe. A collapse in housing prices would be a disaster for the banks, cue bank bailout/govt guarantees again.

Higher rates usually indicate a market with strong demand and thus RBA goes to higher rates to slow down any overheating of the market. It also increase value of dollar as money flows in for higher rates, lowers import costs, increases export cost, thus pressure on domestic market...to slow things down.

Many many years ago when I was a banker the property market was so bad we couldn't off load prime land in Hervey Bay, we were closing down real estate agents, a few of the public even tried to murder our bank managers and so on. We had a property value write down of around $3bn at the time, which was massive and put intense strain on health of the bank.

As for gold, increased concern over risk in usual investment options see people hedge into gold. One of the cheaper ways to 'own' gold is to buy into a good miner like NST. It is also more liquid.