Home buyers in Melbourne – which has just snapped a 10-month streak of falling values – are racing to lock in purchases in a city where prices picked up in February and are set to gain further as confidence improves.

Richard Laettemaegi, who wants to buy a family home in Kensington, in the city’s inner north-western suburbs, says the competition that made him and his wife – who have a three-week-old baby – miss out once already will only increase after last month’s 25-basis-point cut in interest rates.