Current Market Insights
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Understanding the property market can be a challenging thing, with highs and lows, twists and turns. The media and agents tend to spread the news they want you to hear, with the advice they want you to follow.
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Current Market Insights
Episode 102: Prices Rise as Auction Heat Cools
Hosts Ciaran O’Brien and Peter O’Malley break down Sydney’s late-year property trends — where prices keep climbing even as auction heat fades. With migration pressure, infrastructure investment, and rate movements all pulling the market in different directions, we map what’s driving demand and how to plan your next move.
We also discuss:
- Why December 2025 is shaping stronger than last year’s market
- How three rate cuts have lifted confidence — but not single-handedly
- Western Sydney’s buyer surge driven by major infrastructure rollouts
- Migration pressure continuing to outpace housing supply
- Inflation risks and the RBA’s warnings on potential rate reversals
- Inner-city apartments emerging as contrarian value plays
- Auction clearance rates dipping as volumes reach seasonal highs
- Stock levels tightening into late December and January
- Vendor strategy: list when others pause to capture buyer attention
- Investor takeaway: follow infrastructure and scarcity for long-term gains
As always if there is a specific topic you would like for us to cover, please reach out and let us know!
Hello and welcome to another edition of Current Market Insights. I'm your host, Kieran O'Brien, and with me as always is Mr. Peter O'Malley. Peter, hello. Kieran, great to see you. Really great to see you, Peter. It has uh been a hot minute, and I I know that the property market has uh, as it always does this time of year, fluctuates and and ebbs and flows and kind of starts to heat up and move along. And I thought today's episode might be a really great opportunity just to get a sense of what the temperature of the market is at the moment. Um, and what I mean really is what are the numbers kind of telling us about activity out on the ground? What is your own experience telling you about what you're seeing? And then what are the conversations happening around the place that kind of give you, I guess, some sense or guidance as to where people's mindset is as we move closer to Christmas in 2025? Thanks, Kieran.
SPEAKER_01:Well, look, there's no doubt that the Sydney property market is performing better this December than it did last December in 2024. Uh so prices are up, buyer activity is up, confidence is up, it's easier to close sales, it's easier to negotiate purchases up in price. Um the three interest rate cuts throughout the calendar year have changed the dynamics in the Sydney property market. Um not that we were chasing this, but we found ourselves uh in the second half of 2025 uh listing and selling a number of properties uh in Western Sydney. Right. Uh whether it be existing clients, family, friends, etc., um, that asked us to handle a sale for them. And I can tell you now the Western Sydney economy is on fire.
SPEAKER_02:Would any of those sales uh and uh this probably goes against exactly what you just said with the economy being on fire, but would any of those have been distressed or you know the consequence of just financial strain in Western Sydney, or are these just markets that are moving well? People are seeing opportunity and thinking now's the time to capitalize.
SPEAKER_01:The the migration pressure that you keep hearing about in in the media, we see it in the city with you know certain demographics chasing inner-city apartments, but there's other demographics that are chasing house and land packages in western Sydney. And uh I am constantly shocked every time I look at the pricing in suburbs um like Glenwood, Blacktown, um uh Kellyville, um uh suburbs that when I was growing up in Sydney, um they were essentially cow paddocks and basic hand house and land package properties are going for one and a half million. And and when they sell, they don't sell to uh one buyer who you're lucky to find. Crowds turn up.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I'm I'm not surprised though. Some of those locations are on the new metro, you know, they're part of Sydney's interconnectedness uh vision for the next you know 15 to 20 years. I'm I'm not entirely surprised. And I think we, you know, we talked about maybe 12 months ago, we talked about uh some areas out that way around like Norwest uh and you know the back of Castle Hill, where there's you know, house and land or properties going for you know two, three, even four million dollars in some cases, which I think at the time we remarked was just seemed crazy considering how far out it is from the CBD and what we're used to, I think, in Sydney being quite you know centralized.
SPEAKER_01:And then getting the other way, I heard McGrath's recorded a sale of a single house over six million dollars in Bankstown. In Bankstown in in the last week, yeah. So um um now that's a one-off, and that's double the suburb, the suburb record, um, which was three something prior. But there's some the Western Sydney economy, there's a lot of money and a lot of activity and a lot of demand right through that corridor, and you make a great point about the infrastructure.
SPEAKER_02:I have to ask the question, and maybe it's uh, you know, potentially a little bit on the nose, but given that there are some people in the economy in the broader markets at the moment talking about how uh 2026 might be the combination of a bit of a perfect storm of factors, you know, stagflation, potentially reaching recession, multiple economies, you know, stalling in or failing. Is there any do you do you feel any risks when we start to hear about prices like this that mirror or in some ways reflect on the 2008 uh American housing crisis where things went crazy, money just seems like it was nothing, and all of a sudden the the whole kind of facade came down a little?
SPEAKER_01:Oh look, I hope you're wrong. I think those sorts of risks could always uh seem to have always been there for the last 10 years. It could always be said they've been there for the last 10 years at this time of year. Um, but it it just keeps on hanging in there. I did see hotspotting's Terry Ryder speak at a conference last week. Uh again, back to your point about infrastructure. He said that um the number one leading indicator of a property market that is going to rise is government infrastructure spending, not migration numbers and not interest rates. Yeah. So he was, I'm not saying that he's completely correct on this point, but he was really, really strong that he's saying, I have been studying property markets, which he has for nearly 40 years, and the number one leading indicator that a property market's going to pop is is infrastructure spending. And um uh he was particularly strong uh about Toowoomba in Queensland in recent times, and that market is absolutely uh booming there at the moment. All of south southeast Queensland is booming for that matter at the moment. Um so if the government can keep that going, they'll they'll they'll keep that sort of uh demand there. Uh I see today um Adam Crichton, a well-known journalist, is saying if you're wondering why there's so much inflation in Australia, one in five dollars in Australia was created through money printing and free money in the last five years. So basically the inflation that you're seeing floating through the economy at the moment in his view is government-driven. Um, equally, the RBA have come out today and and said to the financial press, make no mistake, if the inflation rate pops from where it is now, we will be hiking rates. And in terms of the property market, that is something that people are, you know, aware of, you might say, conscious of, but they're not actually listening to the message.
SPEAKER_02:Again, you know, the the government-driven inflation just has shades of 2008 all over it. You know, hopefully that's not going to happen in this scenario. Uh I find it really interesting that uh the Minsk government you know has this mission, mandate, whatever you want to call it, to provide all these houses for people at a time that they are spending huge amounts of money on infrastructure. And as you say, if Terry Ryder's correct, uh the greatest predictor of of property rises or booms is that infrastructure spending around those areas, uh, which seems like you know, MINS is trying to fulfil some kind of it's like a passion project almost to get this infrastructure done. Uh, but at the same time, he's potentially shooting himself in the foot to try and provide affordable housing for all the people that need it when you've got open floodgates and and all the other factors that are making it challenging to get a house.
SPEAKER_01:So just on the numbers, uh I don't have numbers for New South Wales, but I did look up the Institute of Public Affairs uh website, and they have net migration into Australia for the 12 months until September 30, 2025, at 468,390 people.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, which is almost double the kind of targets from was it five or six years ago?
SPEAKER_01:Definitely, definitely. So that's uh let's just round it off at 470,000 people in the 12 months to September 30. That's after two or three years of sustained um migration pressure along those lines. I think one year it got up to close to seven.
SPEAKER_02:560 or 570 or something.
SPEAKER_01:Well above that number. So year on year, these are these are massive um numbers of uh new migrants that are coming um into the country. Um uh for what it's worth, we're not racist, we're not anti-immigration. We're just saying if you're going to invite that many people to a party, you've got to have a chair for them to sit on and a house for them to live in. Yeah. And we don't have a house for these people to live in.
SPEAKER_02:Even assuming, I know we talked about the average household 2.1 or whatever it may be, even rounding that up and saying that there's three per household, uh, we're still not producing the 150,000 or more properties that we need uh to meet that demand. Because again, the majority come to New South Wales, then they go to Melbourne, then they go to Brisbane or whatever it might be, but there is still city-centric migration. There, you know, they're not going out into the regions where there's capacity. Uh the region the regions are doing well, though.
SPEAKER_01:You know, the capital, the region, the capitals in the regions um are doing well. Your Wollongong, your Newcastle, um, Canberra, which is a capital in its own right, of course. Um, the Blue Mountains. So the regions are doing well. And then what's interesting is we sold a uh inner city apartment uh in October, and I had a real estate agent from the city ring me and say, hey, how'd you sell that? And um, who was the buyer? And just tell me about the campaign because I've got one coming up close by. And I said, Look, you know, um we we sold something uh, you know, in Ashfield, which I would have always had the inner city apartments as being stronger and higher demand than than Ashfield with respect. And I said, We we sold Ash Ashfield in an absolute frenzy with a multitude of bids, and I said this inner city apartment took three months to sell, and it was really, really hard work, and the owner didn't sell it for much more than they paid quite some time ago, eight, nine years ago. And he said, I have sold inner city apartments in the city where the owners have sold them for less than they paid ten years ago. He said, inner city apartments are dead. So again, if people are after a contrarian investment, it has to be in the right building and it has to be something with some redeeming unique features. But inner city apartments are desperately unloved at the moment. They they are showing value. If you're if you're talking about inner city apartments in the city of Sydney selling in some cases for less than the owners paid 10 years ago, and you are after an investment, start having a look at some of that stuff and find the best of the uh the leftover product, I'd say.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm not entirely surprised. I think people love uh the idea of convenience, but as infrastructure improves, then that convenience can spread a little bit, which is good, obviously good for the city more broadly. Before we move on to uh our SQM figures, which we we do with every market wrap, uh final question for you just on the heat in the market. You mentioned the three rate cuts have had a pretty strong impact. Are they the only factors do you think that are driving the strong kind of bounce in prices at the moment? Given that some of those were a little while ago. Um obviously the more recent you know, cuts can have some role in this time frame, I would think. But uh do you think it's a case of people just holding on uh for the right time of year? Or is there just a different kind of confidence or sentiment in the market that's driving some frenzy at the moment?
SPEAKER_01:Oh look, I think inflation's going again, and with inflation comes uh pay rises. Um there's no there's no doubt about that. So no, I don't think the three rate cuts are the uh only reason that the property market is so strong this this year to close the year out than at what it was compared to 2024. Um, but um it's sustained migration, so it's a sustained housing demand at a time where new supply is is seriously underperforming the demand that's there. The interest rate cuts, you're probably seeing some uh increase in um in wages, uh a bit better uh confidence, all of those things combined, stitched together, mean that you've got a property market in Sydney that's maybe put on five or six percent uh for the year?
SPEAKER_02:Do you think, and this is a bit of a road question, but do you think given the free fall that cryptocurrency's been in and the fact that that's been an investment medium for particularly younger investors over the last few years, do you think that there's any sentimental shift uh to get out of the kind of decentralized investments into not going to say fiat currency, but something more stable and traditional as a medium to hold people's wealth at the moment?
SPEAKER_01:Look, it's it's a fair question. Um, property and crypto um is something is is a linkage that I'd like to know more about. I I have a uh an anecdotal view um that the uh crypto property link is actually at the higher end of the market. Yep. So when you see certain properties selling for around 10-15 million dollars in Sydney, the owners or the new owners of those properties are not earning that amount of money a wage to support that sort of mortgage. Yeah. Um they're they're clearly moving equity around, and whether that's share market gains, um inherited wealth or or crypto gains, um, you'd need one would need deeper data than than I have available to me. But um anecdotally, I have conversations and I poke around and read things, and um, I've actually got a screenshot on my phone here about uh um some high profile person on the Gold Coast that was featured in the media not so long ago, um, who um made her money in crypto and and and then and then became very active in the property market.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh, I don't think it's uncommon. Uh and I wondered, yeah, I guess I wondered no knowing that people have traded crypto for property in the past as a great you know vessel to do that, given that cryptocurrency seems to be rapidly falling, I think Bitcoin's down 20 or 25 percent. Like it's quite a huge drop. Uh whether you know you've met any people on the ground who are looking to shift into a more stable investment, whether or not it's going to return. You know, I think the true acolytes that have held crypto for these kind of gains for this long are probably holding on uh diamond hands, as they say, in the in the industry. Uh, but who knows?
SPEAKER_01:You know, who knows? Yeah, here's the heading here in the Gold Coast Bulletin. Crypto Queen relist$5.6 million Bitcoin funded Mount Tambourine mansion. Yeah. So so it is it is happening, but I don't think it's happening at the uh uh at the bottom end with the uh the young ones trying to break into the property market. I think there's a there's there's a cohort of uh individuals um uh that have made a lot of money out of crypto and they're reinvesting that into prestige real estate. Which is not a bad way to go.
SPEAKER_02:Uh as we move towards the the end of the episode today, then Peter, I wonder if you could take us through SQM Research's uh auction clearance data, because I know uh while you know we we usually refer to their data as a a a yardstick, I guess, or a bit of a measure of what the activity looks like in the market. Um, but I can see we we haven't spoken about it for a few weeks, but uh I can actually see there's been a bit of a dip in the rate, and I think uh our listeners would appreciate if you could take us through what the numbers are and what's probably driving the the changes we're seeing week to week.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, look, this is obviously just um reading out last week's results, but up until um maybe two weeks ago, the auction clearance rates were still hovering uh just above 50%. So they're doing okay. But last week on SQM researchers numbers, they've got the auction clearance rate falling to 45.2% on uh uh 1682 scheduled auctions. Yeah. Um so that number, uh, which when you saw it, you you quite rightly pointed out, is well up. So there's a view that last weekend and the weekend coming being Saturday, the 6th of December, um, are the last auction weekends of of the year. Yeah. And that um that whilst there will be auctions on the 13th and the 20th of December, uh the numbers will will fall dramatically. Um we're already seeing in the inner west stock levels are coming down very, very quickly. And there's a view that uh stock will be very skinny until after Australia Day. All I see there is opportunities for vendors that are brave enough to go out there and and put their property um on the market and make it available for those buyers that are still around. Because as we've already discussed today, there's not enough housing in the city, there's far more buyers than sellers at the moment. And when sellers go away, um seasonally speaking, um and think that you can't sell, that's the time when you can actually jag yourself as a vendor a very good sale because your seller competition's a lot lower. I can tell you now, it's much harder to get the right price for your property when there's sixteen hundred and eighty-two auctions on a given week when than when there's two hundred.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, look, 100%. Uh the only things I I just want to touch on and get your opinion on uh before we wrap up then, the sold prior this week is higher than the sold at auction. Uh now that's not particularly uncommon, uh, but given that it's it's you know uh uh maybe what's that 10% above, uh, do you think there's any indication there that vendors are trying to exit the market before we get too close to Christmas? Is there any I'm not gonna say desperation, but uh maybe a slightly greater sense of urgency giving that we are coming to Christmas time?
SPEAKER_01:Look, uh I can only talk about the stuff that I hear about the industry firsthand and through podcasts and you know, consumers' um uh consumers' experiences on the ground. There's no bidding wars. Yeah, the bidding wars have not really occurred this spring. Um, we've said it before, we don't want to labor the listener, but spring is not the best time to sell your property. Yeah, too much stock comes to market every year and dilutes the buyer demand. Right at the moment where a lot of vendors are packing up and saying, Well, you can't sell now, is the time that you should give consideration to going to market because there's good buyers in the marketplace who haven't secured something over the spring and have suddenly watched their available options before them, you know, dry up very quickly. Now, if the inflation number on I think it's uh Wednesday, January 29 is a bad number, the RBA have said we will not be afraid, if required, to increase interest rates. So we're about six to eight weeks away from that event. Vendors should be giving serious consideration can I can I pinch a sale at the right price in that time frame, even if it's an unconventional time of year. And um uh this time uh last year to start 20, or the beginning of this year, I should say, to start 2025, we'd knocked over four sales before the 20th of January. Yeah. Um because there was no stock on the market. And we said to the clients who trusted our read on it, go now, go when there's no competition, get yourself the right price and and and and and move on. And and and and that strategy worked, and we'll do it again next year. So um it's it's an interesting time. You can't take your eye off the ball. Um, but I I have been hearing in industry podcasts that the auction clearance rate has been going down in the last week or so, and the number of bidders per property has fallen away.
SPEAKER_02:I uh I just want to wrap up by saying it's uh been a great episode today, but your point around just holding firm to Christmas and the New Year window, it really does hold true. I think everyone who has worked for you uh or Harris Partners over a Christmas or a New Year's period, myself included, has either sold a property or wrapped up the final bits on the on Christmas Eve, you know, many, many times over. Uh and I think you're exactly right. There is great opportunity for any vendor who trusts the process and holds because you find yourself with a bunch of buyers sitting around on holidays with not much to do except browse property, and all of a sudden they realize there's a couple that might suit and they turn up and they go for it. Uh so I think, you know, listeners out there who are considering going on the market or already on and want to halt, uh, you know, more likely to have a Merry Christmas than otherwise, I suspect. Look, really great episode today, Peter. The interesting to see the bounce in the market. I'm not totally surprised to see the uh increase in stock, but I certainly know that uh things will quiten down a little bit as we move through December now. Uh but as always, I appreciate you coming in and having a chat with our listeners. Thanks, Kieran, all the best. All the best to you and thanks to everyone for listening to Current Market Insights. We look forward to speaking with you next time.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for joining us on the current market insummant public comments. The public comments, realistically, some mummers, and
