Everyone says "it's a buyers' market" like the discounts just hand themselves out.
They don't. Most buyers in a soft market still overpay, because they negotiate the same way they did when the market was hot.
Here's what's actually changed, and how to use it.
The shift in the numbers
In Sydney, sales volumes over recent months have been tracking around 17 percent below the same time last year. Melbourne is down about 14 percent. Both cities have listings sitting above average levels, and Cotality has called the shift toward buyers' conditions explicitly.
Auction clearance rates are holding below average nationally. Properties are taking longer to sell.
Translate that: vendors have fewer buyers, more competition from other sellers, and less confidence. Every one of those is leverage that belongs to you now.
How leverage actually gets used
The buyers who win in these conditions do three specific things.
They find the motivated vendors. A listing that's been sitting for 70 days with a price reduction already behind it is a completely different negotiation to a fresh listing. Days on market, previous campaigns, price cut history. That data tells you who needs to sell versus who'd like to.
They make clean offers. In a nervous market, a buyer with finance sorted, flexible settlement and no subject-to-sale condition is worth real money to a vendor. Sometimes more than a higher offer with strings attached.
They walk away, visibly. When there's no queue of buyers behind you, walking away is a genuine weapon. Vendors know you have other options now. Acting like it changes the numbers.
The mistake to avoid
Don't confuse cheap with good. Soft markets discount the worst stock hardest. The property that's 10 percent below its old price because it's on a main road is not a bargain, it's a main road property finding its real value.
Quality stock still sells fine, just with less madness. That's where you want to be buying.
The execution gap
All of this is knowable. Very little of it is knowable by someone doing this for the first time, in their spare hours, against agents who do it daily.
A buyer's agent runs this playbook as their actual job. They know which campaigns are struggling, what the vendor paid, and where the walk-away number sits. Converta matches you with a vetted one who specialises in your target market and budget. Free, no obligation, first call within 24 hours.
The leverage is there. Send someone who knows how to use it.
Source: Cotality, June 2026.