{"id":541169,"date":"2026-03-15T03:13:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T03:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/541169\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T03:13:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T03:13:21","slug":"buyers-abandon-sydney-property-macrobusiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/541169\/","title":{"rendered":"Buyers abandon Sydney property &#8211; MacroBusiness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This month\u2019s consumer sentiment survey by Westpac and the Melbourne Institute suggested that homebuyers have gone cold on Sydney property.<\/p>\n<p>As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.antipodeanmacro.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Antipodean Macro<\/a>,\u00a0homebuyer sentiment has fallen sharply in Sydney, as has dwelling value growth:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sydney-time-to-buy-a-home.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"552\" alt=\"Sydney housing sentiment\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Recent auction data is also gloomy.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Last week\u2019s final auction clearance rate for Sydney was only 58.6%, which was the lowest of 2026 and well below the 64.0% final clearance rate recorded in the same weekend of last year:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sydney-auction-clearances-vs-prices.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"480\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Sydney auction clearances vs prices\"\/><\/p>\n<p>This weekend\u2019s auction results were more of the same, with Cotality recording a preliminary clearance rate of only 65.1% for Sydney, down from 74.3% last weekend (revised down to 58.6% on final numbers):<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Cotality-auctions.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"331\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Cotality auction clearance rates\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Cotality<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Melbourne\u2019s preliminary clearance rates were similarly weak.<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting the slower demand, Sydney\u2019s 28-day daily dwelling values index from Cotality has stalled, recording 0% growth:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sydney-Cotality-28-day-change.png\" width=\"647\" height=\"464\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Cotality daily dwelling values index\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Recall last week\u2019s updated housing forecasts from Louis Christopher, founder of SQM Research:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SQM-dwelling-values-forecasts.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"432\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"SQM dwelling values forecasts\"\/><\/p>\n<p>SQM Research forecasts that Sydney would experience significant price falls this year (i.e., between -6% and -2%), owing to the Iranian conflict and the upgraded inflation outlook, whereby the interest rate futures market has now fully priced two additional rate hikes in 2026, with the possibility of a third:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/RBA-rate-Tracker-5.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"420\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"RBA rate tracker\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re now expecting housing price falls in Sydney by the order of up to 6% for the course of 2026\u2033, noted Louis Christopher in his podcast discussing the forecasts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSydney\u2019s economy is driven by its financial services sector in many respects. Unfortunately, financial services as an industry does not do well in times like these\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo it\u2019s likely we\u2019re going to see job losses in the financial services sector, which would have a carry-on flow to the local economy, which then in turn affects the housing market\u201d, Christopher said.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Sydney\u2019s mortgage affordability is by far the worst in the nation. This makes Sydney housing especially vulnerable to interest rate hikes:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mortgage-affordability.png\" width=\"551\" height=\"399\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Income spent on mortgage payments\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The average NSW mortgage was $873,000 in the December quarter of 2026, according to the ABS.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>If the RBA were to hike the official cash rate four times this year (including February\u2019s hike), the cash rate would end the year at 4.60% and the average discount variable mortgage rate at 6.50%.<\/p>\n<p>As illustrated in the table below, the average new mortgage holder in NSW would face a cumulative increase in repayments of $423 per month from their repayments before the first rate hike in February:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/NSW-minimum-mortgage-repayments-1.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"171\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"NSW minimum mortgage repayments\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The squeeze on mortgage affordability largely explains why Sydney property is facing price falls as interest rates rise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This month\u2019s consumer sentiment survey by Westpac and the Melbourne Institute suggested that homebuyers have gone cold on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-541169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}