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Sydney buyers are picking up homes for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than in the last few years, with agents saying prices, in some areas, are down by as much as double digits.
In the north, for instance, a five-bedroom house in Roseville on the upper north shore, at 14 Belgium Avenue, which last sold in 2021 for $6,408,000, sold on June 13 for $5.65 million.
“At the top end of the market, there are big falls in price, while anything below $2 million, we’re seeing a 5-7 per cent fall,” said agent Luke Lombardi at Pulse in Sutherland. “There’s just so much uncertainty around now with interest rates, tax changes and global uncertainty, and a lot of buyers are holding back, overthinking everything, and deciding to wait longer in the hope of prices falling further.
“But I have a gut feeling that we’ve now reached the bottom of the market, and buyers should realise that this is a great time to buy.”
In the eastern suburbs, Georgia Cleary of McGrath Real Estate, Paddington, sold a beautifully renovated four-bedroom Victorian terrace at 31 Goodhope Street in May 2023 for $3.92 million. It’s just resold for less than that.
Similarly, a three-bedroom townhouse at 3/5 Trelawney Street, Woollahra, that she sold for a vendor in 2022 for $3.87 million has just been snapped up again for about 7 per cent less, at $3,595,000.
“When you include stamp duty, that’s more of a 10 per cent saving,” Cleary said. “Around here, I’m seeing prices come back across the board by 5 to 10 per cent which, at these prices, is a significant saving. We’re seeing both a softening of prices and fewer buyers competing at auction.
“The difficulty is that some buyers, when there’s not much competition, lose confidence and don’t want to make decisions. When there’s a lot of people competing, they feel reassured that something is a good buy. But these kind of windows of opportunity for buyers never last as long as people think they will.”
Certainly, there’s a marked shortage of buyers out bidding at auctions, with the clearance rate in Sydney last weekend slumping to a pandemic-era low of 47 per cent, the most sluggish result in five years.
Almost a quarter of properties ended up withdrawn, according to Domain data, and nearly half of the successful sales were negotiated before auction, out of fear there wouldn’t be enough bidders.
Domain’s forecast for the next 12 months predicted that Sydney house prices would plunge by up to 7 per cent and unit prices by as much as 3 per cent.
“But we’re now seeing prices down 10 to 15 per cent,” said Brad Gillespie of The Agency in the inner west. “It’s definitely a buyers’ market and there’s really no reason to be holding back.
“Now is the best time to buy the kind of property you might once have thought was unattainable and in the suburb of your choice, rather than having to search in your second- or third-choice suburbs.”
Gillespie sold a three-bedroom unit at 6/27-31 St Peters Street, St Peters, last weekend for $1.56 million, when a comparative neighbouring property sold three months before for $100,000 more, a 6 per cent price difference.
Even despite the strong price rises of the COVID years, some properties have now come down again to almost the pre-pandemic level.
A five-bedroom house in East Killara on the upper north shore, 22 Koola Avenue, for example, previously sold in 2018 for $3.8 million and, if it had risen in price in line with the Sydney market, would be valued at as much as around $4.59 million now. Instead, it sold on June 13 for just $4 million.
Jessica Cao of Ray White Upper North Shore says she’s seeing prices 10-15 per cent down in her area, “A lot of disappointed buyers who couldn’t buy last year, are buying now instead,” she said. “It’s now a great market to buy property in.”
At Adrian William Real Estate in Newtown, principal Adrian Tsavalas is currently selling a brand-new five-bedroom house at 37A Earlwood Avenue, Earlwood, for $2.95 million which he says, in a hot market, would be worth up to $3.3 million.
He blames buyer caution. “But these are undoubtedly the best buying conditions we’ve seen in years,” he said. “Prices are down 5 to 15 per cent, depending on the individual asset, for instance if something is on a main road or needs renovating.”
He points to a three-bedroom house sold in Earlwood at 36 Nelson Road for $2.32 million at the end of January but just two months later in March, a similar house nearby at 36 Francis Street went for just $2,125,000.
“It indicates a very sharp change in sentiment,” said Tsavalas. “We’re seeing a lot of buyers put their buying decisions on hold to see how it pans out next year, instead of buying now and saving themselves money. And the Sydney market has a way of defying the odds and bouncing back with no notice.”
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