Open a property app on almost any morning this winter — or simply let the feeds and notifications bring the news to you — and the picture is the same: a market losing air. Rising distress across the development sector, projects stalling, and headline after headline about the cost of money.
Woollahra and Waverley, 2025 v 2026: six months that changed the market
The construction industry has borne the brunt of it — on ASIC’s figures it remains the single largest source of corporate insolvency in the country, accounting for roughly a quarter of all external administrations, and failures there have climbed for four straight years, past 3,500 businesses in 2025 alone. When builders and developers come under that kind of pressure, confidence travels quickly through the rest of the market.
The established Eastern Suburbs are a different animal from a half-finished apartment block — but they are not immune to sentiment. So rather than trade in mood, I went to the ledger. What follows is a straight comparison of the first half of this year against the first half of last, across the nineteen suburbs I work in — spanning the Woollahra and Waverley local government areas, from Bondi to Point Piper. Same window, same streets, one year apart. The numbers tell a clearer story than any headline.
Volume, value and the cost of money
The first half of 2026 against the first half of 2025 — 1 January to 14 July each year — across the nineteen suburbs of the Woollahra and Waverley local government areas.
| Side by side | H1 2025 | H1 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recorded sales | 1,485 | 1,147 | −23% |
| Total value transacted | $6.21bn | $4.21bn | −32% |
| Median sale price | $2.40m | $2.30m | −4% |
| Largest single sale | $55.0m | $24.0m | −56% |
| Sales at $30m or above | 8 | 0 | −8 |
| RBA cash rate, end of period | 3.85% (easing) | 4.35% (tightening) | +0.50pp |
| Auction clearance, late June | 73% | low 40s | −30pp |
The shape of that is worth pausing on. Transaction volume fell by roughly a quarter, and the total value of property changing hands fell by nearly a third — but the median barely moved. In plain terms: the broad market held its price and simply did less business, while the very top of the market, where the largest sums sit, went quiet. The fall is concentrated at the ceiling, not the floor.
Rates reversed, and the auction floor gave way
Rates reversed. In the first half of 2025 the Reserve Bank was cutting — two reductions brought the cash rate down to 3.85 per cent by May, and buyers moved with the expectation of more to come. Borrowing capacity was widening; confidence followed. In the first half of 2026 the Bank did the exact opposite. Three consecutive increases carried the cash rate from 3.60 back to 4.35 per cent by May, where it was held in June. The same buyer who was gaining ground a year ago is now working against a rate that is both higher and moving the wrong way.
The auction floor gave way with it. Through the first half of 2025, Sydney’s clearance rate recovered steadily — by late June it sat near 73 per cent, the arithmetic of a seller’s market, where competition rather than persuasion sets the price. A year on, the combined capital clearance rate has held below 50 per cent since late May and slipped into the low 40s by late June. When fewer than half of all auctions find a buyer under the hammer, the mechanism itself has stopped doing the work vendors are relying on it to do.
Where the volume went, suburb by suburb
Recorded sales in each suburb, first half of each year. The pattern is telling: the sharpest falls are in the prestige suburbs — Vaucluse, Rose Bay, Bellevue Hill, Double Bay — where the discretionary top end simply stopped transacting. The more affordable coastal apartment markets held far steadier.
| Suburb | H1 2025 | H1 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bondi Beach | 151 | 108 | −43 |
| Bellevue Hill | 144 | 99 | −45 |
| Paddington | 136 | 128 | −8 |
| Rose Bay | 128 | 80 | −48 |
| Bondi Junction | 127 | 101 | −26 |
| Vaucluse | 121 | 58 | −63 |
| Woollahra | 104 | 85 | −19 |
| Bondi | 91 | 100 | +9 |
| North Bondi | 91 | 72 | −19 |
| Double Bay | 76 | 49 | −27 |
| Bronte | 72 | 59 | −13 |
| Darling Point | 65 | 50 | −15 |
| Edgecliff | 39 | 36 | −3 |
| Waverley | 39 | 35 | −4 |
| Dover Heights | 36 | 31 | −5 |
| Queens Park | 28 | 21 | −7 |
| Tamarama | 18 | 16 | −2 |
| Point Piper | 11 | 14 | +3 |
| Watsons Bay | 8 | 5 | −3 |
| All suburbs | 1,485 | 1,147 | −23% |
The three largest sales in each suburb, 2026
The standout results of the half, suburb by suburb. All figures are settled sales on the public record.
| Suburb | Address | Sale price |
|---|---|---|
| Paddington | 102 Hargrave Street | $8,750,000 |
| 40 Windsor Street | $8,350,000 | |
| 67 Cascade Street | $7,875,000 | |
| Bondi Beach | 252 Campbell Parade | $15,000,000 |
| 601/152 Campbell Parade | $12,150,000 | |
| 20/2-4 Notts Avenue | $10,800,000 | |
| Bondi Junction | 57 Ruthven Street | $10,000,000 |
| 21 St James Road | $7,300,000 | |
| 1701/568 Oxford Street | $6,625,000 | |
| Bondi | 6 Jackaman Street | $8,725,000 |
| 3 Moore Street | $7,000,000 | |
| 14 Penkivil Street | $6,700,000 | |
| Bellevue Hill | 8 Rosslyn Street | $23,080,000 |
| 93 Balfour Road | $20,000,000 | |
| 31 Warren Road | $18,200,000 | |
| Woollahra | 10 Wallaroy Road | $16,800,000 |
| 304 Jersey Road | $13,800,000 | |
| 22 View Street | $8,600,000 | |
| Rose Bay | 27 Victory Street | $19,000,000 |
| 3/746 New South Head Road | $17,000,000 | |
| 3 Chamberlain Avenue | $10,900,000 | |
| North Bondi | 126 Brighton Boulevard | $24,008,889 |
| 148 Hastings Parade | $17,400,000 | |
| 99 Murriverie Road | $13,300,000 | |
| Bronte | 27 Chesterfield Parade | $15,000,000 |
| 73 Hewlett Street | $15,000,000 | |
| 18 Tamarama Marine Drive | $13,500,000 | |
| Vaucluse | 41 Vaucluse Road | $23,220,000 |
| 22 Village High Road | $23,000,000 | |
| 10A Dalley Avenue | $19,500,000 | |
| Darling Point | 15 Eastbourne Road | $21,000,000 |
| 1/50 Mona Road | $12,700,000 | |
| 84 Darling Point Road | $12,200,000 | |
| Double Bay | 3/9 Gladswood Gardens | $20,000,000 |
| 5/9 Gladswood Gardens | $20,000,000 | |
| 2/17 Gladswood Gardens | $18,500,000 | |
| Edgecliff | 133 New South Head Road | $8,000,000 |
| 9/339-341 Edgecliff Road | $4,850,000 | |
| 13 Walker Avenue | $4,400,000 | |
| Waverley | 28 Carlton Street | $10,800,000 |
| 21 Kent Street | $7,240,000 | |
| 7 Langlee Avenue | $7,000,000 | |
| Dover Heights | 13 Kippara Road | $17,000,000 |
| 13 Rodney Street | $13,500,000 | |
| 51 Wallangra Road | $12,800,000 | |
| Queens Park | 84 Queens Park Road | $14,500,000 |
| 11 Edmund Street | $9,600,000 | |
| 36 Queens Park Road | $8,750,000 | |
| Tamarama | 89 Fletcher Street | $10,000,000 |
| 19 Dellview Street | $9,400,000 | |
| 21 Fletcher Street | $9,000,000 | |
| Point Piper | 2 St Mervyns Avenue | $23,500,000 |
| Lot 1/72 Wolseley Road | $22,000,000 | |
| 2/3 Buckhurst Avenue | $8,900,000 | |
| Watsons Bay | 23 Cove Street | $8,350,000 |
| 4 Gap Road | $3,800,000 | |
| 2/2-8 Military Road | $2,020,000 |
My read
A market that has genuinely turned still sells more than a thousand homes a half-year. What it stops doing is reaching. The value fell nearly a third while the median barely moved, and that gap is the whole story — the everyday market is still trading at close to last year’s prices, but the top of the market has withdrawn. When the largest results thin out, it is rarely because those owners must sell. It is because they have chosen not to test a market that will not pay yesterday’s number.
That is the quiet privilege of the prestige end, and it is precisely why method matters more now than it did a year ago. In a market where fewer than half of auctions clear, price discovery in public is a risk, not a strategy. The owners who do best from here will be the ones who choose their timing and their approach — rather than letting the calendar, or the crowd, choose for them.
Alan Weiss · Weiss Real Estate
