A report from the Daily Telegraph in Australia. "Sydney home auctions have turned into a bonanza of giveaways as real estate agents offer free coffee, arts and crafts bags for kids and even champagne in the hope of attracting bigger crowds to their sales. Auctioneer Damien Cooley said champagne giveaways were another strategy that was becoming popular at auctions in the current climate of conservative bidding."

"'(Agents) usually offer the champagne to whoever opens the bidding,' Mr Cooley said. 'It was something we used to see a lot at auctions a few years ago, before the boom, but we’re seeing it come up a lot more again … it’s a weaker market.'"

The Newcastle Herald. "The curse of Newcastle's Empire Hotel site has struck again after the land's latest owner shelved plans for the Onyx high-rise apartments due to slow sales. Warwick Miller, whose firm is building the Verve apartments around the corner in King Street, said he had refunded clients' deposits with interest and agreed to pay 'reasonable' legal fees."

"Newcastle unit prices have dropped eight per cent since their peak amid tighter bank lending and a downturn in the national housing market, according to CoreLogic. 'I figure there's no point in us hovering around for a year and keeping people going in the hope that we'll eventually sell enough to start it,' he said."

"'It's very hard for me to imagine, and this is me talking, anybody starting a new project in B-grade residential in the town,' he said. 'Some people are probably questioning the prices as they're dropping, 'Why would you want to buy now?' Overall, if you could say one thing about the market, the market's down because of people's inability to borrow. It's changed everything.'"

"Mr Miller said he believed the next proposal for the site would be for student accommodation. 'Nobody at the moment would try and build apartments there. Wrong timing, too much else on the market, and my numbers show there was a carryover of about 800 units from last year into this year. If you're only going to sell 200 units off the plan in 2019, you'll carry another 600 from what's already on the market.'"

The Weekly Times. "There are four vacant blocks of land for sale in an exclusive pocket of Sydney at the moment that are either on the water or with knockout views of the water. Empty blocks of land are not common in the Emerald City, especially so close to the harbour or the ocean but these four sites are all large with amazing views and at least one has had a serious price cut."

"Arguably the rarest of the four blocks is a 1813sqm parcel in Seaforth on Sydney’s northern beaches. Last year the land had a price guide of $5 million to $5.5 million. Now that guide has dropped to $4.5 million and the block is booked for an auction on Saturday March 16."

From News.com.au. "Data from auction house Cooley Auctions showed a nearly 40 per cent annual drop in auctions over February, with the average price for sales dropping from $1.3 million to $1.07 million. SQM Research director Louis Christopher explained that total private treaty listing numbers recently rose to nearly 36,000, but many of the homeowners trying to sell were those who had first listed back in spring."

"'They’re relisting,' Mr Christopher said. 'It was a tough spring selling season and there were a lot of (homeowners) who didn’t sell.'"

The Star Weekly. "Wyndham’s property market is 'not all doom and gloom' according to local real estate agents. YPA Werribee director Bassam Tofaili said the real estate market in Melbourne, including Wyndham, was 'adjusting' after the recent boom. 'I wouldn’t say it’s doom and gloom, but it’s not an easy market, that’s for sure.'"

"CoreLogic last week released a report which showed that properties in Melbourne had experienced a 9.1 per cent price drop (to a median value of $629,457) between February this year and February last year. Properties in Melbourne’s west had experienced an annual drop of 5.7 per cent, to a median value of $549,075. The data did not break down the information into individual municipalities."

"Mr Tofaili said vendors needed to be realistic about their price. 'Sellers need to look at the last three months’ of sales, not the past 12 months,' he said."

The Sydney Morning Herald. "Reserve Bank research has found its cuts in official interest rates drove up house prices, and cautions that long-term falls could in the worst case escalate into an American-sized drop in Australia's property market."

"As recently as last week, Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe downplayed the role of the RBA in the spike since 2011 in house prices, which in Sydney and Melbourne climbed by up to 75 per cent, peaking in 2017. Since then they have fallen, with Sydney's house prices dropping at their fastest rate since the 1982 recession, while they are also trending down in every capital city bar Hobart and Canberra."

"But Reserve Bank economists Trent Saunders and Peter Tulip said their research pointed to the role of interest rate cuts as the driving factor behind the pre-2017 property boom. They found that a one percentage point cut in interest rates lifted house prices by 8 per cent in the two years after the move."

"'The model suggests that much of the strength in housing prices and construction over the past few years can be explained by the fall in interest rates,' they found."