Freeze grips home sales after RBA moves leave homeowners in limbo

Mounting speculation over further interest rate cuts has spurred a winter freeze across the Sydney housing market as buyers and sellers await the outcome of the next Reserve Bank rates decision before making a move.

PropTrack’s June 2025 Listings Report has revealed a 13 per cent decline in new listings across Sydney over the past month.

Current listings are also about 5.2 per cent lower than at the same time last year.

Many of the homeowners delaying plans to sell their homes are likely to also be buyers, with upsizers and downsizers normally making up a significant share of the buyer pool.

A slump in new listings has occured as total listings rise, suggesting a market where buyers have a large selection of older listings but few fresh options.

PropTrack economist Angus Moore

It’s an anomaly on the east coast when compared to other capitals like Melbourne and Brisbane, where both new and total listings have declined since last year.

PropTrack economist Angus Moore said the data demonstrated that Sydney properties were spending longer on the market recently.

“The fact we’re seeing a bit more stock on market despite a smaller flow of new listings reflects homes taking a little longer to sell than they were a year ago,” he said.

“Though the difference isn’t large, and homes are still selling faster than they were pre-pandemic.”

With a prospective cash rate cut in the future, Mr Moore said things would soon improve for sellers.

“We’re expecting to see a couple more rate cuts this year,” he said. “Coupled with the fact Sydney home prices have been consistently increasing this year after a soft period in late 2024, that’s likely to support vendor confidence.”

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Chris Scerri holding an auction in Summer Hill. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Scerri Auctions director Chris Scerri said compared to June last year, auction figures were “a little bit down”.

He added that this kind of decline was seasonal and sales would “increase significantly” come Spring, and that future rate cuts would also provide a boost to buyer confidence, auction turnouts and bids.

“As soon as there’s talk of an interest-rate cut, (loan) applications and reapplications increase,” he said.

“That just gives more confidence which means increased buyer numbers.”

“At the moment our average buyer number is about 3.5 per auction, and then of those buyers about 50-60 per cent are actually bidding.”

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