SYDNEY, NSW – 2 Sept, 2026 – Sydney’s housing downturn shows little sign of easing. Home prices in the harbour city have now fallen for a sixth consecutive month, slipping another 0.3 per cent in August and sitting 4.9 per cent below their late-2025 peak, according to realestate.com.au’s latest Home Price Report. Nationally, Cotality data shows values are already 3.6 per cent below the March 2026 high after a 0.9 per cent drop in August — the fifth straight monthly decline — with 93 per cent of capital-city suburbs now recording falls.
Major banks have sharpened their forecasts. Commonwealth Bank now expects a national peak-to-trough decline of around 9 per cent, with Sydney and Melbourne potentially falling 13 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. ANZ has flagged even steeper Sydney falls of up to 14.5 per cent — levels not seen since the early 1980s. NAB’s chief economist Sally Auld recently suggested the correction is only about one-third complete, both in time and price terms.
Against that backdrop, the temptation for many buyers is obvious: wait for the absolute bottom. Yet experienced market watchers are warning that strategy is far harder — and riskier — than it sounds.
“For buyers waiting for the bottom it sounds sensible, but it’s pretty hard to do in practice because you only know the market has bottomed out once the market has started to turn,” says Mathew Tiller, LJ Hooker Head of Research. “When confidence returns the competition can come back in quite quickly, once there are reports that we’re past the bottom.”
Tiller’s advice is straightforward: base the decision on personal circumstances rather than attempting to time the cycle perfectly. Focus on buying well, negotiating carefully and not over-extending. Structural supports remain in place — strong population growth, low unemployment, tight rental markets and an ongoing undersupply of homes — that are likely to put a floor under how far prices can fall.
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PRD chief economist Dr Diaswati (Asti) Mardiasmo agrees that pinpointing the exact bottom is fraught, especially because conditions vary sharply between suburbs. Capital-city medians and bank forecasts are averages; individual suburbs move to their own rhythm. Buyers who wait too long can miss the short window of opportunity when confidence returns.
“The speed of the market actually growing is much faster than it falling,” Mardiasmo notes. “It is much faster in recovery than it is to go backwards, because we do have undersupply and we have a higher demand. The time of that golden key opportunity window is definitely much shorter.”
History supports the point. Recoveries after previous soft patches, including the brief Covid-era dip, have often been sharper than the preceding declines. Once sentiment shifts — whether triggered by clearer rate direction, stabilising listings or simply the realisation that prices have stopped falling — sidelined buyers can re-enter quickly, lifting competition and prices.
Interest-rate decisions over the coming months will heavily influence how far and how long the current adjustment runs. Some agents are looking toward mid-to-late 2027 as a possible trough, linked to the full impact of Budget tax changes and the path of the cash rate. But even those timelines remain contingent.
The practical cost of waiting is not only the risk of missing a particular property or suburb. Longer campaigns and higher stock levels are currently giving buyers more negotiating power and choice — advantages that tend to evaporate once the market turns. Holding off also means continuing to pay rent in a still-tight rental market, while construction costs and replacement values keep rising.
None of this is an argument to rush. Buyers should still stress-test their finances, avoid stretching too far, and treat every purchase as a long-term decision. But treating the search for the precise market bottom as the primary strategy risks turning a period of relative opportunity into a period of regret.
In short: buy the right property, at a price that works for your situation, rather than waiting for an exact turning point that is only clear in hindsight.