Market Update - July #1
The RBA Has Paused. The Lower North Shore Has Not Waited.
The Reserve Bank held the cash rate at 4.35% on 17 June. Three banks now agree the next move is down. Sydney’s clearance rate hit a new 2026 low of 54.3% in the final week of June. And the Cotality Home Value Index recorded a 1.2% monthly fall for Sydney in June – the steepest single-month decline since December 2022. For buyers on the Lower North Shore who have been waiting for a signal, this is it.
The Hold That Changes the Calculation
The RBA’s June 16-17 board meeting delivered what three of the four major banks had been calling for: a hold at 4.35%. The statement was unambiguous on the reason – financial conditions are already tighter than they were, and the board is assessing the cumulative impact of three consecutive hikes before making its next move. The next scheduled meeting is 10-11 August.
CBA, NAB and ANZ are now aligned on the rate outlook in a way that has not been the case at any point in 2026: all three expect the cash rate to hold for the remainder of this year, with cuts arriving in 2027. CBA has pencilled in May and August 2027. NAB has three cuts from June 2027. ANZ sees two cuts in September and December 2027, taking the cash rate to 3.85%. Only Westpac remains an outlier, still forecasting two further hikes in August and September to a peak of 4.85%.
The practical implication for buyers on the Lower North Shore is straightforward. Three banks telling the market that rates have peaked is a different psychological environment from three banks forecasting the next hike. Buyer confidence does not wait for the rate cut itself – it begins to rebuild from the moment the rate cycle appears to have peaked. That moment is now. And the buyers who engage before that confidence rebuilds into competition are the ones who will look back on winter 2026 as the window.
GERARD MAZAR
Director, Mazar Martin Buyers Advisory
June’s Numbers: What They Actually Mean for This Corridor
The Cotality June Home Value Index confirmed what open inspection attendance and auction results had been signalling for weeks: Sydney’s market is in a meaningful correction. The 1.2% monthly fall in June was the sharpest in more than three years. Nationally, the June result was a 0.4% decline – the largest monthly fall since December 2022 – with Sydney and Melbourne the principal drivers.
The Sydney clearance rate for the week ending 27 June came in at 54.3% – down from 58.0% the previous week and against 76.0% for the same week in 2025. The national rate was 51.5%. Total listings in Sydney are running 9.3% above year-ago levels, while new listings are falling. Properties are staying on market longer. Buyers have more choice than at any point in the past year.
But here is what the headline data does not capture on the Lower North Shore specifically. The corridor’s owner-occupier base – the families buying to access Mosman, Neutral Bay and Cammeray school catchments, the downsizers from Mosman heritage homes, the returning expats – does not behave like the broader Sydney buyer pool. These buyers do not disappear in a downturn. They recalibrate their timing. In the current environment, they are still attending opens, still finance-ready, and still transacting – but against a vendor cohort that has also had to recalibrate. That combination is where the opportunity sits.
JEREMY MARTIN
Director, Mazar Martin Buyers Advisory – Buyers Agents, Lower North Shore
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What Is on Market Right Now – and What to Watch For
Current listings across Mosman, Cremorne and Neutral Bay reflect the winter pattern: lower volumes, higher proportion of motivated vendors. Ray White Lower North Shore has 72 properties listed for sale in and around Mosman. Raine and Horne Mosman is running active auction and EOI campaigns including 14/669 Military Road, Mosman – a two-bedroom apartment with EOI closing 30 July – and upcoming auctions across Cremorne and Neutral Bay.
The properties worth watching are not the ones with fresh price guides and spring-priced expectations. They are the ones that have been on market for four weeks or more, where the guide has been revised at least once and the auction date is approaching or has passed. In those campaigns, the vendor has had the market feedback that adjusts expectations. The selling agent is ready to have a real conversation. And a prepared buyer – one with finance confirmed and a current comparable sales analysis – is in a position to transact at a price that reflects June 2026 conditions, not November 2025’s peak.
The apartment segment across Neutral Bay, Crows Nest and Cammeray is particularly active for its size. National unit clearance rates have consistently outperformed houses through the 2026 cycle – 67.4% for units against 59.4% for houses in the week ending 27 June. The school catchment buyer who has stepped back from the family home market is keeping apartment demand alive in the price brackets where LNS entry is still achievable at current borrowing capacities.
GERARD MAZAR
Director, Mazar Martin Buyers Advisory
August 11 and What Buyers Should Do Before It Arrives
The next RBA board meeting is scheduled for 10-11 August, with the decision announced at 2.30pm on 11 August. On current consensus forecasting from CBA, NAB and ANZ, the most likely outcome is another hold at 4.35%. Westpac’s call for a fourth hike remains an outlier that the market is no longer heavily pricing.
The pattern from every RBA decision in 2026 is the same: in the days after the decision lands, buyer activity surges as those who were waiting for clarity re-enter the market simultaneously. Clearance rates respond within a week. Vendor flexibility contracts. The negotiating room that existed before the decision closes quickly once the uncertainty resolves.
Between now and 11 August, the Lower North Shore market is in a window defined by three things. Buyer numbers are at their lowest point of the year. Vendor expectations have reset to reflect genuine market feedback. And three major banks are publicly forecasting that the rate cycle has peaked. For a buyer who is finance-ready and working with an advisory that has current intelligence on motivated vendors across Mosman, Cremorne, Neutral Bay and Cammeray, that combination is not a reason to wait. It is a reason to move.
The buyers who transact in July 2026 are not buying into a falling market with no floor. They are buying into the cyclical trough of a structurally constrained corridor, ahead of a rate cycle that CBA expects to begin reversing in May 2027. The assets they secure this month will not be more available or more negotiably priced when that cycle turns. They will simply be less achievable.
JEREMY MARTIN
Director, Mazar Martin Buyers Advisory – Buyers Agents, Lower North Shore
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Gerard Mazar
DIRECTOR · MAZAR MARTIN BUYERS ADVISORY
Gerard is a specialist buyers agent on Sydney’s Lower North Shore with deep expertise across Mosman, Neutral Bay, Cremorne, and the wider harbourside market including suburbs surrounding Willoughby to Chatswood. His buyers advisory work is built on long-standing agent relationships and intimate knowledge of the LNS micro-markets.
Jeremy Martin
DIRECTOR · MAZAR MARTIN BUYERS ADVISORY
Jeremy is a specialist buyers agent on Sydney’s Lower North Shore with deep expertise across Mosman to Cremorne, but also Lane Cove, Cammeray, Crows Nest. His buyers advisory work is built on rigorous daily market intelligence, long-standing agent relationships, and an instinct for identifying motivated sellers and off-market opportunities before they reach the public market.
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