Melbourne Price Data and Auction Results Hint at A Market Shifting Gears

Melbourne’s auction clearance rate dipped below 60% last week for the first time since April, with CoreLogic tracking just 59.6% of 1,080 reported auctions as sold under the hammer or shortly after. The city’s median house price slid to $917,200 for June, down around 0.5% month-on-month according to the latest Victorian Valuer-General figures.

Sharp Turn in Seller Strategies

The drop in auction clearances comes at a time when market confidence, once a hallmark in key pockets like Balwyn and Brighton, appears to be fading. REIV data shows 370 auctions were withdrawn citywide in the past four weeks, as vendors reassessed sales plans in the face of cautious buyers and slimmed-down attendance. Domain head of research Nicola Powell says this is the sharpest slowdown since late 2022, when interest rates last surged. In contrast, private treaty listings in the Frankston corridor are climbing, with Marshall White noting 18% more new listings compared to June last year.

Elwood’s leafy avenues and new apartments along St Kilda Road are feeling the pinch, with apartments there typically passed in or negotiated post-auction over the last month. Meanwhile, the city’s migration-fuelled demand persists for certain unit stock, especially in Docklands and Southbank, but for houses in the $2.5 to $4 million range—from Toorak’s Lansell Road to Camberwell’s Prospect Hill—fewer buyers are showing up with cheque books at the ready.

Data Tells a Patchwork Story

Data from SQM Research backs up what agents are seeing on the ground. The total number of Melbourne listings rose 7.4% in June, and buyers are becoming more selective. Median days on market across the city are at 36, up from 27 at the start of the year. In Bayside, the median house price sits at $2.13 million. On the other hand, the hottest growth is still being recorded in the Frankston corridor, where first-home buyers and young families target houses under $900,000. In Carrum Downs, houses that would have struggled to fetch $720,000 last winter regularly tick over $820,000 this month, according to Buxton Real Estate.

Still, uncertainty around interest rates and cost-of-living news is feeding into seller anxiety. From the leafy gardens of Malvern to the new towers near Box Hill Central, properties spending longer unsold is the talk of Saturday open-for-inspections. Public auction crowds at Richmond Town Hall and Prahran Town Hall have thinned noticeably compared to early autumn. Clearing the big four-bedroom properties around Glen Iris often requires a price cut or creative negotiation, agents say.

Looking ahead, housing economists expect the market to stay patchy through winter, with further auction withdrawals likely if sentiment doesn’t stabilise. Vendors considering listing in areas like Northcote or Bentleigh East may need to weigh auction versus private treaty, and prepare for extended campaigns. For buyers, increased choice and cooling prices in some suburbs could mean sharper deals. But the outer southeast’s new stock—particularly in school zones—may stay in short supply. The key in the months ahead will be flexibility: vendors should stay open to negotiation and alternate sales pathways, while buyers need to do their due diligence on recent comparable sales on their target streets.