A report from Domain News in Australia. "Melbourne’s housing market has rebounded from its downturn in the months since the clear federal election result, boosted by cuts to official interest rates and a move by the bank regulator to let buyers borrow more money. The stiff competition at auction was tempering the enthusiasm slightly, and the prospect of more auctions to choose from next week would influence buyers’ choices."

"'I don’t think any buyer wants to be a part of that story that appears in the paper that says, ‘House exceeds reserve by $150,000,’ said. 'It’s not uncommon for a buyer who has missed out on a property, and has been outperformed, to contact us a few days later with a sense of relief saying they’re glad they didn’t go as hard.'"

From Yahoo Finance. "In Sydney, median house rent prices are 4.5 per cent below where they were a year ago and median unit rent prices are down 4.6 per cent to $520, according to Domain’s rental report. And Sydney’s west, where investors purchase properties specifically for the purpose of renting them out, have seen the biggest drops."

"Investors are losing now as rental prices in western suburbs continue to fall, Eliza Owen told Yahoo Finance. 'Canterbury, Bankstown, the south-west and Western Sydney had the biggest year-on-year declines at almost 6 percent.'"

"And it’s due to new supply in the rental market: with more supply and more stock in the market and plenty of choice, landlord have had to put rents down to try and attract tenants. 'It does present a problem for someone who maybe bought at the peak of the market and they’re finding it harder to get a tenant,' said Owen."

"Investors should not make any impulsive moves, she suggested. 'Essentially, investors need to ride the wave at the moment.'"

From Domain News. "Blocks of residential land in Melbourne’s outer suburbs where new houses could be built are set to keep sitting empty into next year even amid the city’s housing affordability woes. Some buyers who have already paid a 10 per cent deposit for land are now struggling to get finance to settle their purchase and are desperate to sell to someone else, with their land remaining vacant in the meantime."

"BIS Economics associate director of residential property, Angie Zigomanis, said it was an 'unfortunate' situation for buyers who were being 'left out on a ledge' by the banks."

"First-home buyers Kirby Kieper and husband Jason have struggled to sell their block of land near Melton South since February, despite their 'reasonable' price. They bought near the peak of the market and settled in December, but as property prices dipped they decided to sell and instead buy an established home closer to the city."

"'We’d actually be in the house if we’d built it,' Ms Kieper said. 'Hindsight is an amazing thing.'"

"Agents are fielding calls from owners wanting to resell land they own or sell by nominee. 'I get calls twice or three times a week from people trying to sell their block,' Barry Plant Melton auctioneer Ned Nikolic said. 'There’s a lot of land available which is keeping the prices down.'"

"Owner-occupier vendors are competing with speculators who bought during the boom. First National Westwood Werribee’s Rob Westwood said some speculators were pricing too high in the current market. 'They’re asking for two-years-ago prices which are about 15 per cent to 20 per cent too high,' Mr Westwood said."

From ABC News. "Shaky confidence in the capital city apartment market is hitting off-the-plan buyers hard, with a significant rise in the number of newly constructed units now worth less at completion than the price they were originally purchased for. 60 per cent of off-the-plan apartments in Sydney, and 52.9 per cent in Melbourne, were valued lower than their contract price at the time of settlement."

"The latest figures from CoreLogic for the month of August shows that nearly a third of off-the-plan buyers in Sydney were moving into new apartments worth at least 10 per cent less than the price they purchased them for. Just two years ago, less than 16 per cent of newly constructed NSW units were valued below contract price after they were completed."

"In Queensland, 43.1 per cent of units were worth less at settlement than what they were purchased for, and in Western Australia it was 22.5 per cent of apartments. CoreLogic's head of research, Tim Lawless, said when many of these newly completed apartments were originally sold off the plan back in 2016 and 2017, the market was very different."

"'We were seeing values rising at about 15 to 20 per cent per annum in Sydney and Melbourne,' Mr Lawless said. 'Now cast your mind forward to 2019 and we've seen prices come down in Sydney by 15 per cent. In Melbourne, they're down by about 11 percent. A lot of those off-the-plan buyers have seen a very fundamental shift in the value of the project that they purchased a couple of years ago.'"

"Mr Lawless said there had been a significant oversupply in the high-rise sector, with supply substantially outpacing demand. But he said concerns around construction quality, remediation costs and flammable cladding had had a compounding effect. 'That [is] probably also weighing on the minds of people in the marketplace and potentially affecting the resale value of those properties as well,' he said."

"Owners at the 10-storey Mascot Towers in Sydney have fared far worse than most. Not only have residents such as retiree Maree Peters watched their building garner major media coverage for its structural defects, they have still not been able to return to their homes."

"'We have an asset worth one and a half million dollars that right now is worth nothing,' Ms Peters said. 'It's your home, it's everything you worked for, that you think is safe, that you think is protected.'"