Waterdale real estate agent Jason Ballo has just taken over the selling responsibilities for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-parking apartment with district views of Sydney's lower north shore.
"This Chatswood property was on the market with another agent for 1.8 (million), we've come in and listed it again at 1.6, we're actually doing some work on it at the moment. it's really about presenting a property the best way and best value for buyers."
With prices stagnant or falling, they're million-dollar views in a market coming off the boil.
"We're seeing more stock on hand than we have ever before, there's a lot more properties that aren't selling, a lot more properties are coming off the market, being expired more than we have seen in the last 6 to 7 years."
Cameron Kusher, Head of Research at property researchers CoreLogic, says some vendors may have to lower their expectations.
"If you're selling the message is that you need to be really realistic about your price because credit is tighter, people can't borrow as much as they used to, so you have to set a realistic price or you have to be willing to negotiate on that price in order to sell."
Rob Mellor is a property expert and managing director of BIS Oxford Economics.
He says that's because of tighter rules by the corporate regulator and the fallout from the Banking Royal Commission, designed to limit risky lending.
"Generally speaking, most of the cycles have been driven by interest rates, this one has been driven by the tightening up of credit and the reality that affordability had really hit home in a negative way in Sydney and to a lesser degree in Melbourne, where effectively you couldn't see a sustained growth like you had seen, there needed to be a correction."
But affordability has improved slightly as house price declines accelerated in 2018.
Cameron Kusher expects prices to continue to fall next year.
"Maybe not as severe as the declines which we'll see by the end of this year, which will probably be in the vicinity of 5-6 per cent nationally, but we think for the next 6 to 9 months you're going to continue to see declines, especially in the Sydney and Melbourne housing market, and I wouldn't be surprised to see values falling another 4 to 5 per cent over the next 12 months and maybe a little bit more than that in Sydney and Melbourne."
Rob Mellor adds, though, it comes on the back of a period of large gains. "Let's not forget this is at a time where there has been a lot of supply added to the market (more dwellings available) and the market - particularly for Sydney and Melbourne when you had anything from 50 up to 70 or 80 per cent price growth in a five year period - a correction was warranted."
The correction has the attention of the Reserve Bank, which is tipped to leave official interest rates on hold throughout 2019.
Rob Mellor says there are risks, though."The increase of interest-only loans in the last four years has probably been to a degree that staggered me - that's certainly a risk for the market, going forward."
Chris Bedingfield, property analyst at real estate investment company Quay Global Investors, says many of those loans will switch to principal and interest next year.
"That will impact the economy, that will impact consumer sentiment and consumer spending. My guess is, they're not going to default on their loans because of that, my guess is they'll cut back on their spending."
Major defaults and dire predictions of a full-blown crash wouldn't happen without the economy first experiencing a major shock prompting a dramatic rise in unemployment.
With a federal election looming, housing policy is likely to affect the markets.
Labor wants to limit negative gearing to new homes and cut the capital gains tax discount from 50 per cent to 25.
CoreLogic's Cameron Kusher is concerned about that policy. “I think that could lead to some further weakness in the market, to be honest with you, because what the policies are trying to do is drive demand to the new housing sector and particularly at the moment there have been a lot of new apartments built, and what we're finding with a lot of these new apartments is as they come up to completion, the valuation of these properties are coming in well below the actual contract price, so in some regards, the policy changes are pushing potential buyers into more risky areas of the market, but it's also going to have repercussions for the resale value of those properties as well because you're getting these people buying these properties and then when you go to resell these properties those buyers don't get the same benefits that they did."
