SELLERS are racing to list their homes in Sydney's west this spring, hoping to nab a first-home buyer before January 1 when the stamp duty concessions cut out.
Daniel Formosa, principal of Starr Partners Blacktown, said the knowledge that first-home buyers would have to pay stamp duty from next year had led to ''a bit of an influx''. Under the first-home buyers scheme, properties priced less than $500,000 are excluded from stamp duty, and there's a discount for those priced between $500,000 and $600,000.
''A lot of people are putting their property onto the market to try to get a bit more,'' Mr Formosa said.
Oscar Montes De Oca, the principal of Wiseberry Acclaim Prestons and Wiseberry Liverpool City, said many of his vendors were struggling to meet their loan repayments and wanted to cut their losses. ''They're saying we had better sell and take what we can get because next year, without this incentive, the buyers won't be there and they'll lose more,'' he said.
Figures from Australian Property Monitors show across Sydney, 5.5 per cent more properties were newly listed this September quarter than last year. A senior economist at APM, Andrew Wilson, said that last September uncertainty surrounding that month's federal election had delayed sellers.
New listings for Sydney houses in the September quarter were up 3.3 per cent on last year (704 extra houses); new listings for Sydney apartments were up 7.4 per cent (665 extra units).
Yet some agents are reporting much bigger jumps in listings compared with last year.
''Anecdotally our listings in Sydney metro are up at least 20 per cent on this time last year,'' the CEO of Raine and Horne, Angus Raine, said.
And it's not just outer suburbs' listings that are up: the McGrath offices that operate within 10 kilometres of the CBD report a strong Spring listing period. ''Our listings in these areas were up significantly in August and September this year by 23.4 per cent compared to the corresponding period in 2010," McGrath's chief operating officer, Geoff Lucas, said.
But buyers don't just have new listings to choose from. Some analysts contend there's a bank of unsold properties from last year remaining on the market.
Louis Christopher, the managing director of SQM Research, said that when unsold property was taken into account, there was 22 per cent more property on the market this spring in Sydney, compared with last year. ''But compare that to Melbourne, where stock levels have increased by 65 per cent,'' he said.
Mr Christopher said the biggest increase in Sydney stock levels has been in the west, where there were 4348 houses for sale compared with 3241 last year - a rise of 35 per cent. In the Liverpool region alone, there had been a 67 per cent jump, he said. There were 19 per cent more houses for sale in the inner west than last spring; 6.5 per cent more houses in the east but 1.8 per cent fewer houses on the lower north shore.
He said there were also much larger numbers of apartments for sale across Sydney this spring, with 82 per cent more stock for sale in Liverpool; 79 per cent more in Penrith; 51 per cent more in the south-west; 24 per cent in the inner west; 14 per cent in the east. There are 430 apartment listings on the lower north shore, which is exactly the same number as last year.
Mr Montes De Oca said many of his vendors were hurting. ''We've got one family now who wanted $499,000,'' he said. ''They paid $473,000 in 2008 and the highest offer I got was 460,000.
''They're losing their repayments plus the interest, and that's typical of what's happening.''
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