Best news for Sydney homebuyers in six years

The Sydney property market has just hit a milestone not seen in six years. For those looking to buy, it’s great news.

Choice for Sydney buyers has lifted, with the most listings in a December seen in six years.

REA Group’s latest Listings Report released Tuesday revealed that December marked a milestone for Sydney’s property market, with increased choice for homeseekers.

The typical seasonal slowdown in December did see new listings fall 65.9 per cent month on month, however this was an improvement on the previous year where new monthly listings fell 69.1 per cent in December 2023.

Even so, there were more homes available on the market for Sydney buyers compared to a year earlier as total listings increased by 12.7 per cent year on year.

This marked the highest volume of total listings for December since 2018.

Across the capital cities, Sydney had the second largest increase in total listings over the year, behind Canberra.

MORE: $130m: Buyer of Sydney’s richest house revealed

Buyers are in luck as more choice is available on the market. Picture: Thomas Lisson

MORE: Where you can score a cheap beach home in Sydney

What can help Aussies more than a rate cut

REA Group director of economic research Cameron Kusher said the higher listing environment was reducing competition and contributing to slower price growth.

“There’s less desperation from buyers, people are being a lot more selecting when they’re trying to choose a property to buy,” he said,

They aren’t putting in offers just to secure a property and that is weakening price growth,” he added.

Mr Kusher said new listings had been strong throughout most of 2024 with three main factors driving more stock to the market.

“People are getting to the point where they need to upgrade to a new home. The other driver is people have gotten quite a lot of equity in their property given the strong price growth over recent years,” Mr Kusher said.

“The third is that higher interest rates have really bitten for some people so they may have overextended themselves when interest rates were very low and now that they have remained higher for longer, they simply can’t afford those properties anymore so they’re looking to exit.”

MORE: Huge warning as Aus property market shifts

Regional NSW had more listings than Sydney.

Regional NSW had the highest volume of December total listings since 2019.

New listings fell by 36.4 per cent over December, yet total stock in regional NSW was higher than a year ago, with total listings up 9.8 per cent from December 2023.

“There’s quite a bit more choice in regional NSW, there are more properties available on the market then there are in Sydney,” Mr Kusher said.

“Which is quite typical, although we saw that flip during the pandemic when there was more Sydney stock on the market.

Mr Kusher said he expected price growth would be weaker over the first half of the year due to higher interest rates and more available stock for sale.

“For people who are really struggling, one rate cut might not be enough to solve the issue so I wouldn’t be surprised if we continue to see a heightened level of people that are under a bit of financial strain trying to sell their properties.”

MORE:

$20m ‘realignment’ warning for Aussie homeowners

Originally published as Best news for Sydney homebuyers in six years