Sydney’s prestige market may be feeling the effects of the broader housing downturn, but TRG founder Gavin Rubinstein says the Eastern Suburbs continues to offer opportunities for agents who understand how to navigate changing conditions.
“I actually don’t think it’s a bad market. I think it’s a changed market,” he said.
It is a distinction he makes as Cotality data shows the largest falls in Sydney continue to be concentrated at the upper end of the market, while properties nationally are taking longer to sell and vendors are accepting larger discounts.
Cotality’s September Housing Chart Pack shows a 5.3 percentage point gap between the cumulative decline in Sydney’s upper and lower-quartile houses, with upper-quartile houses now 10.7 per cent below their cyclical peak.
Yet Gavin said conditions in the Eastern Suburbs could not necessarily be read in the same way as the broader market.
“Luxury property in certain areas is struggling too. I think the Eastern Suburbs is a little bit of a microcosm, if you know how to navigate.”
His own results provide some context for that assessment. Gavin became the first agent across Ray White’s network, which spans roughly 13,000 agents, to reach Elite status for the 2026/27 year, achieving the milestone just six weeks into the financial year.
He is also on track to achieve Chairman’s Elite status, Ray White’s highest recognition tier, for the 13th consecutive year since it was introduced.
His performance comes against a markedly different backdrop across the broader housing market, particularly at the premium end.
Cotality Head of Research Gerard Burg said the data showed the largest falls remained concentrated at the expensive end of the market.
“Higher-value dwellings in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra were the first to turn and continue to record the largest cumulative falls,” Mr Burg said.
“Upper-quartile houses in Sydney and Melbourne are now more than 10% below their cyclical peaks, underscoring the role premium housing has played in driving the downturn.”
The broader market has also become tougher for vendors. Cotality estimates national sales activity was 2.7 per cent lower over the year to August, with capital-city sales down 5.2 per cent while regional sales rose 1.8 per cent.
Homes are also taking longer to sell, with the national median time on market reaching 39 days, compared with 28 days a year earlier.
Vendor discounting across the capitals has widened to 4.2 per cent, its highest level since January 2023, while total listings have climbed 18.1 per cent year-on-year to more than 139,100 properties.
Gavin pointed particularly to the imbalance between the number of properties available and the number of people who still want to live in Sydney’s east.
“Particularly in the East – and again, I can only speak for the East – there’s still a supply-demand issue. There’s not a hell of a lot of supply and people want to live here, so there’s lots of opportunity.”
Gavin said his own experience also illustrated why broad market figures could differ significantly from what individual agents were seeing.
“It’s a hard one for me because, personally, I’ve had my best 12 months in almost two decades of selling real estate,” he said.
“But on an office level, we’ve regressed probably by about 10 per cent, so I think there’s good and bad. Personally, I’m seeing huge opportunity in this market.”
While sellers are questioning whether to put their properties on the market now or wait for conditions to change, Gavin said those conversations were not unique to the current environment.
“I think you have those conversations in all climates and in all markets,” he said.
“I think the East is governed mainly by supply and demand. Secondly, I think it’s governed by misinformation from agents and false expectations. If you can get your head around that and understand it better, there’s a lot of opportunity.”
For agents operating in the current environment, Gavin said recognising that the market had changed and understanding how to navigate a transaction had become increasingly important.
“I feel like strategy, energy and a comprehensive understanding of what a selling transaction involves is paramount to being able to guide your clients through the current climate,” he said.
Recent buyer activity had reinforced that view. Gavin said two properties he listed recently attracted between 18 and 20 groups at their first weekend inspections despite having been online for only a short period.
“They had only been online for 24 to 48 hours,” he said.
For Gavin, the current Sydney luxury market is therefore less about expecting conditions to return to where they were several years ago and more about adapting to the market as it stands.
“We didn’t complain to the press when things were booming, saying, ‘Look how great it is.’ That means we can’t do that when things level out, which is where it’s at,” he said.
“You’ve just got to adjust your sales and keep adding value to the consumer.”