The housing industry says the latest rise in official interest rates will add to the pressure on first home buyers in South Australia.

The Housing Industry Association (HIA) says the rise has come just as the building industry had been showing signs of improvement from the global economic downturn.

Official Robert Harding thinks the rates lift is premature.

"The recovery, particularly in the construction industry, is still fairly fragile," he said.

"While we have seen some encouraging signs there is no certainty it's going to be able to continue and sustain the recovery."

Michael Brock from the Real Estate Institute (REI) of South Australia says the increase will not deter buyers and should not affect house prices.

"I think the buyers in the market had already anticipated a quarter of a per cent," he said.

The Institute says that, despite tough economic times, house prices over the past year have increased by about two per cent in SA.

Peter Vaughan from Business SA says the rate rise will also have a dampening effect on SA's retail sector heading into the Christmas trading period.

"It would be far preferable for them to have delayed it," he said.

"If interest rates rise the cost of money goes up, businesses find it more difficult to borrow and don't get demand for their goods, that means the level of employment opportunity in our state will contract and that will make it harder for all people currently unemployed or the future unemployed to get work."

The South Australian Farmers Federation's Peter White says it is a setback for farmers at a time when rural debt is at an all-time high.

"You combine that with the [high] Australian dollar at the moment," he said.