Yet the market is still seeing strong results. A four-bedroom Melbourne home with a pool and tennis court sold for $7,650,00 last week through Abercromby's Real Estate Armadale.
Last week's preliminary clearance rate was 69.6 per cent, while the clearance for the previous week was revised down to 67.8 per cent, the lowest clearance rate for the year, and the third week in a row the rate has been below 70 per cent.
Sydney and Melbourne's clearance rates held above 70 per cent last week, but are likely to be revised lower as more results come in, according to CoreLogic.
The top sale for the week ending 18 June was a four-bedroom historic home in Hawthorne, Melbourne, which sold for $7,650,000. The agent was Abercromby's Real Estate Armadale.
Click here to view the top-selling property at 49 Lisson Grove, Hawthorne, Victoria, on Luxury List.
"We are certainly looking at a new norm in the Sydney market," REINSW president John Cunningham told SCHWARTZWILLIAMS.
Agents are having to lower reserve prices to get properties sold, and many auctions are seeing only one bidder, though still achieving solid results, said Cunningham.
"It is clear that this stabilised market is seeing properties sell in good volumes albeit in many cases with slightly less than expected prices, whilst at the same time there are results going well beyond expectations as the market finds its level playing field."
Cunningham said some buyers in the below $800,000 price range were holding off buying until stamp duty concessions come in after 1 July, yet others saw this an an opportunity to jump in before prices rose.
"It is clear that although some first home buyers in the sub $800,000 price point are holding office and waiting there are plenty of investors and some first home buyers who are punting on prices rising in this bracket," he said.
Source: CoreLogic.
REIV president Joseph Walton told SCHWARTZWILLIAMS that 40 per cent of last weekend’s auction occurred in the city’s middle ring, achieving an average clearance rate of 80 per cent.
“Vendors in these areas recording strong results under the hammer," he said.
Walton attributed the softer clearance rates to the setting in of winter.
“Given we are now well into winter, it is not unusual to see a slight softening in the clearance rate. However, this weekend’s auction market still performed better than the same period last year.”
Read more about auction clearances:
Buyers not deterred by long weekend, as strong sales continue