Home buyer bonanza: listings quadruple in parts of Sydney

A sudden rise in property listings is turning the tide for home buyers, with some popular Sydney suburbs seeing a particularly large spike in sales.

A wave of new property listings has hit Sydney – making available four times as many homes as last year in some areas – and the increased choice for buyers is expected to moderate the pace of price growth over the coming months.

It’s also likely to make buying property much easier for buyers, who until recently were struggling with a dire shortage of available homes. This created stiff competition for the rare dwellings that were listed.

PropTrack data showed the volume of new property listings in Greater Sydney rose 11.2 per cent over May, leaving home seekers with about 30 per cent more available homes than at this time last year.

The increase was a lot higher in many city regions, with the southwest recording a whopping 63.7 per cent annual jump in new listings.

Inner west listings jumped 45.9 per cent and in Blacktown and the northern beaches the increase was about 37 per cent.

The north shore, Hills District and CBD and inner south had a 30-35 per annual rise in fresh listings.

Rhodes had the largest uptick in new listings when measured at the suburb level, with a rise of 227 per cent – or about four times the listings recorded last year. Austral, Leppington and Chiswick had rises of about 150 per cent.

PropTrack economist Paul Ryan said the bounce in available homes would throw home seekers a much needed lifeline and ease some of the pressure on them to up their price offers.

He added that still high demand and sluggish building activity would mean prices may continue to inch up – just not by the large margins recorded last year and earlier this year.

The recent surge in listings activity reflected confidence about the interest rate environment among sellers – most of who are upgraders or downsizers also seeking homes to buy.

“Rates may still go up, but there is an expectation we’ve already seen the biggest rises and the possibility of a cut next year has encouraged some to list,” Mr Ryan said.

This climate was a change from 2022 and early 2023 when uncertainty over how high the cash rate would go gave many would-be sellers jitters, sending listing volumes crashing, Mr Ryan said.

PropTrack economist Paul Ryan rate stability may have encourage more homeowners to list. Picture: Supplied

Auctioneer Clarence White, the director of auction house Menck White, said current home seekers could get better deals than they would have earlier this year or last year.

“It varies a lot,” he said. “There is a huge amount of investor-grade stock on the market. Landlords are selling them off because holding them has become too expensive.

“Most of these properties are units that would normally appeal to other investors, but they’re not buying as much as they used to, so they stay on the market longer.

“Freestanding houses that are north-facing, renovated, walking distance to a train station and schools – basically all the things most buyers want – are still in short supply and they sell well.”

Auctioneer Clarence White said the supply of “investor-grade” stock had risen.

Mr Ryan said the stronger sales conditions earlier this year were another factor driving listing increases. Equity gains from previous years would also have encouraged some owners to upsize, he said.

“We can expect listings to keep increasing while vendors believe sales conditions are good and if they feel they have a better choice of properties to buy (as their next home).”

Originally published as Home buyer bonanza: listings quadruple in parts of Sydney