Young Couples Pack up for Winter, to Await the Fall

After four months of attending auctions and losing out on properties that were sold well above the advertised price - sometimes for hundreds of thousands of dollars more, Clementine Young and her boyfriend Alex Ball are walking away from the market.

Like many young couples, they are hoping it is a price bubble that will burst.

The ''crazy'' prices being offered for a record low number of listings have soured the buying experience for many house hunters.

''We thought it would be quite easy to upsize but now we are really dejected,'' Ms Young, 31, said.

Ms Young, a merchandising manager, and Mr Ball, 31, an account director at an advertising firm, were hoping to upgrade from their one-bedroom apartment in Surry Hills to a terrace in the inner west.

Last month, they were underbidders at the auction of 9 Marian Street, Enmore. The four-bedroom terrace was advertised

at ''$800,000-plus'' and sold for $1,004,000.

More recently, they changed tack and decided to offer an above-market price for a two-bedroom terrace in Newtown.

''We thought the property was worth $880,000 but were willing to go to $915,000,'' Ms Young said. ''An investor ended up spending $965,000 on it.''

The couple is hoping for a steep fall in the market. ''The big test will be when there is more stock,'' Ms Young said. ''But I'm fed up now so I am going to get my Saturdays back and start looking again in spring.''

However, analysts do not believe spring will bring much relief.

''We are tracking the best results we have for a number of years … but we certainly don't have a bubble,'' Australian Property Monitors senior economist Andrew Wilson said.

''There is the tooth fairy, there is the Easter bunny and there is the Sydney property bubble.''

Dr Wilson said the strong sales and high clearance rates would continue till the end of the year, and forecastgrowth of 5 per cent to 7 per cent in Sydney's prices for this year.

The latest RP Data real estate figures show dwelling values increased by 2.7 per cent last month.

Lisa Jones, who rents a home, has been trying to secure an inner city terrace in an auction.

She attributes her lack of success to the low number of listings.

''We go to auction with what we think is a fairly handsome sum of money and we miss out on properties that I don't even want to live in,'' she said.

''We keep thinking that there is a bubble happening at the moment … but we've never seen prices go down except for short little blips.''

Figures released by SQM Research show the number of Sydney homes listed for sale is at a three-year low. Last month, there were 23,707 properties listed, 23 per cent less than in June last year.

RP Data senior research analyst Cameron Kusher said that while Sydney prices seemed ''awfully high'', in real terms the long-term growth was underwhelming.

''Adjusted for inflation, there has been no growth over the past decade,'' he said.