Prominent agent John McGrath, who leads ASX-listed real estate agency McGrath, expects the housing correction to play out for another 12 months, while warning the major “unknown” still facing the market is the refinancing of fixed-rate mortgages.

That outlook comes as the McGrath business reported a 7.9 per cent lift in underlying pre-tax profit to $19.1 million for the 2022 financial year. Statutory profit fell 38 per cent to $11.7 million, with the result no longer getting the tax benefit of carry-forward losses and the previous year’s profit boosted by the one-off sale of a stake in its Oxygen home loans business.