The Reserve Bank boss has used a recent speech to announce that an official interest rate rise could be months off, and that the Australian dollar may be a few cents too high.

Speaking to an economics conference in Hobart, RBA governor Glenn Stevens said that just because the bank removed the word “uncomfortable” from its reading of the exchange rate, did not mean it was happy.

“There is little doubt that significant parts of the trade-exposed sectors still find it quite 'uncomfortable': it continues to exert acute pressure for cost containment, productivity improvement and business model change,” he said.

“When judged against current and likely future trends in the terms of trade, and Australia's still high costs of production relative to those elsewhere in the world, most measurements would say it is overvalued, and not by just a few cents.”

Despite hitting an eight-month high of 95 US cents before the talk, the dollar was driven down to 93.9 US cents just after.

He said there would be plenty of warning before any future interest rate rise.

“Long before any thought were to be given to an increase in rates, it would probably be sensible for the board to cease references to a future 'period of stability' and revert to the more normal formulation that the stable policy settings 'remained appropriate' or something like that,” Stevens said.

He also had a message for the Sydney housing market.

“Investors should take care in the Sydney market, which is the main area where a large increase in borrowing has been occurring," Stevens warned.

“The total value of credit approvals for investor loans in New South Wales as a whole is about 130 per cent higher than in 2008, and it is in the investor segment where there has been evidence of some increase in lending with loan-to-value ratios above 80 per cent in the past couple of quarters.”