“They may be downsizing from an urban area,or they may have savings,super or other funds they can draw on,but they’re not requiring mortgages for their purchases,” Toth said. “The higher priced suburbs appear to have a relatively high number of cash purchases.

“For example,in Melbourne,Toorak and Brighton popped up. In Sydney,Mosman was one of the suburbs with the largest volumes of cash purchasers,” Toth said. “This looks like people who already own property and are relocating up or down or sideways.

“The other suburbs that had higher volumes and values are suburbs where there are a lot of new apartments that are particularly popular with investors. They are using finances raised in another way,so they may have other properties,or they may not need to borrow in order to buy that property.”

She said the phenomenon of cash purchasers was only likely to grow and drive a deeper intergenerational wealth divide between those already in the market and those struggling to get in.

“Those who already own property and are cashed up will have the upper hand when it comes to future purchases.”

Downsizers in every Sydney suburb analysed areleft with a sizeable sum when moving from a house to a unit,and it is a similar scenario in Melbourne wherehouseholds in wealthy inner-east suburbs stand to gain the most from downsizing.

Daphne Sauvage of Sydney Sotheby’s International said she saw more cash buyers last year,which helped drive prices up.

“That cashed-up buyer is swooping,and they’re performing quicker and stronger than those relying on those loans. It’s certainly accelerating,” Sauvage said. “I see no reason why that would stop.”

PPD’s Alex Phillips said the cash buyer market was driven by downsizers in the eastern suburbs.

“It is driven by one thing which is downsizers and people cashing in on big assets in real estate,” Phillips said.

“There’s so many people doing it,it’s creating a bigger buyer pool and competition,” he said. “It’ll continue for a long time,it’s an ageing population.”

Jellis Craig director Andrew Macmillan,who sells in Melbourne’s Stonnington council area,including prestigious Toorak,said finance was rarely discussed at the top end of the market.

“When you’re negotiating a transaction,a subject to finance clause is not used in property sales over $1 million,” he said.

Macmillan said,anecdotally,cash buyers were taking advantage of market weakness wrought by high interest rates.

“People with cash now see the market providing opportunities,” he said. “They’re seeing prices settling down so they’re coming back into the market.

“Cash buyers are not affected by interest rates. If someone’s buying a house for $4 million to $5 million,chances are they will have at least $3 million in the bank. You still need a sizeable whack of money to buy a property like that.”

Macmillan said most cash buyers tended to be small-to-medium business owners,particularly those who had sold their company,or retirees.