Dozens of buyers turned up to auctions throughout the year in Sydney.Credit:Peter Rae
“It is slowly swinging towards a buyers’ market and our forecast for Sydney and Melbourne is a modest-to-moderate decline in house prices[in 2024],” he said.
Christopher noted signs of vendors compromising,including an uptick in discounting and distressed selling. He forecasts these figures to rise in 2024.
“[Conditions] are getting a little bit easier for buyers and tougher for sellers,” he said.
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CoreLogic’s Home Value Index in November showed the pace of growth for Sydney dwelling values slowed to 0.3 per cent,down from 0.7 per cent in October.
CoreLogic Head of Residential Research Australia Eliza Owen said a slowdown in Sydney property prices coupled with fewer homes selling under hammer worked in buyers’ favour.
“There has been a slight improvement in buyers’ favour in the sense that the pace of growth across Sydney has slowed month-on-month,” Owen said.
She also noted it took a median of 30 days on market before a property sold in November,up from 28 days in September.
“It is a marginal shift in buyers’ favour that doesn’t make the market easy,but it is clear we’re at the start of a cyclical slow down.”
It comes as listing levels have begun to normalise after plunging below long-term averages,she said,pointing to a more balanced market.
OH Property principal buyer’s agent Henny Stier said conditions had eased for buyers after 13 consecutive rate rises.
“Some suburbs are holding up better than others. But in general,it has eased tremendously. Interest rates are starting to hurt people. We are now in a situation where sellers do really need to sell because of their financial situation. They’re selling even if they don’t get their dream target price,” Stier said.
In one instance,Stier made a pre-auction offer of $1.66 million,which was rejected because the sellers wanted $1.7 million. It passed in at auction after no one showed up. Stier bought it for her clients for $1.65 million afterwards.
It was a similar story for recent buyer Tim Martin and his wife after ending their year-long search,which was hampered by rising rates curbing their budget,and intense competition.
Tim Martin and his wife finally bought a home after a year of looking amid steep rate rises and stiff competition.Credit:Wolter Peeters
“We had to reassess that we were not over-stretching ourselves every month. The other half of that[challenge] was when we were actually going into the market we thought we were being priced out[by the competition],” the 47-year-old IT worker said.
They were finally able to upgrade from their Carlingford unit after offering $1.83 million prior to auction of a semi-detached house in West Ryde that was guided between $1.7 to $1.87 million.
Martin said they knew there was not much interest on the property as the open home numbers dwindled before auction day,and he felt in the end they bought it for a fair price.
“I don’t think we overpaid,nor did we underpay. It worked out really well for us.”