Is it a good time to buy a house right now?

Potential home buyers may find it hard to borrow enough money to buy a home now – but those who manage will find a healthy number of properties for sale to choose from.

It’s a situation that means conventional ideas about whether this is a buyers’ market or a sellers’ market have become more complicated.

One measure is to compare the number of homes sold and the number of owners who list their homes for sale. If there are more sales and not as many new listings to replace them, buyers will be forced to compete, and it is considered a sellers’ market. If there are fewer sales but many new listings, the total number of homes for sale starts to pile up, so buyers have more choice, creating what is considered a buyers’ market.

Melbourne home owners have been pushing ahead with listing their homes for sale even as values have edged lower. There were 21,145 property sales over the three months to July, on CoreLogic figures, but 26,590 new listings, making it a buyers’ market.

In Sydney, supply and demand looked closer to being in balance with a slight upper hand to sellers, at 21,533 sales, but 20,587 new listings. It was a similar picture in Brisbane, even though values were rising more strongly.

And in clear sellers’ markets such as Perth and Adelaide, where prices are rising and buyers face competition, there were more sales than new listings.

The figures come after higher interest rates slashed how much potential buyers could borrow, while home prices have not followed suit.

CoreLogic head of Australian research Eliza Owen said Melbourne’s market has more sellers, more new building over time and fewer potential buyers after thousands of residents left in the early 2020s to escape lockdowns.

“Spring isn’t going to be a good selling season if you’ve got a lot of competition from other sellers,” she said. “You need to assess the supply in your market before believing spring is automatically going to be an amazing time to sell your home.

“When there’s a more pronounced demand issue, whether it’s higher interest rates or the macroprudential interventions we saw in the 2010s, those things seem to outweigh the usual seasonality you get from springtime.”

Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan said even where buyers seem to be in a good position, home buyer sentiment was poor because affordability was weak.

He said Sydney had about the same number of months of inventory on the market as its long-run average, Melbourne had more than it would ordinarily have, and Perth and Brisbane had less than normal.

But sentiment was “a bit of a different story”, he said. Westpac tracks survey responses on whether it is a good time to buy a dwelling, linked to affordability concerns.

“Is the price and interest rate situation conducive to purchasing at the moment? That’s clearly not the case, affordability is pretty poor everywhere and buyer sentiment in that sense is pretty weak everywhere,” Hassan said.

“Buyers might not be that happy to be buying, but they have slightly the upper hand in Melbourne, and it’s an even match in Sydney, and it’s totally a seller-dominant market in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

“It’s a buyers’ market, but you’ve got to be a pretty special buyer in Melbourne and Sydney given where prices are.”

In Sydney, BresicWhitney real estate chief executive Thomas McGlynn thought it was a sellers’ market for good quality properties.

“But for those buyers [who] are willing to look past a few things and potentially consider properties that have some limitations, I would definitely say there are some great buying opportunities and you might say that particular section is slowly becoming a buyers’ market,” he said.

The auction clearance rate had eased, more sellers have to reduce their reserves to sell, and bidders hesitate to push prices into the stratosphere.

Attendances at open for inspections remained strong. “Economic conditions might be making them feel a little nervous in regards to transacting,” McGlynn said.

“There’s no shortage of buyers wanting to buy, it’s just there’s a gap between what the buyers feel the property is worth and what the sellers feel the property is worth.”

In Melbourne, Jellis Craig partner Michael Armstrong said strong prices were being reached for quality properties, even as conditions overall felt like a buyers’ market.

He said the Victorian government’s land tax increase for second property owners and higher interest rates had now sent the market through a period of recalibration.

Open home attendance was down as some hopefuls failed to qualify for their desired mortgage, he said.

Homes in A-grade locations were fielding strong demand, but buyers were more price-sensitive when looking at secondary locations, he said.

“It feels like a buyers’ market, with some signals that it could definitely improve rapidly,” Armstrong said.