All eyes were on Australia’s home auction market to see the response to negative gearing and capital gains tax changes in the first weekend after the federal budget.

The results were mixed.

The volume of homes that went to auction across the capital cities fell 11 per cent from the previous week, but that was still almost 9 per cent higher than a year ago, according to property data firm Cotality.

Nationally, the preliminary clearance rate edged 1.1 percentage points higher to 57.5 per cent. But it was down six percentage points in Sydney, to a six-year low of 49.2 per cent.

Fewer people attend open homes

Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee said the most notable shift in the market was in open home attendance, which fell to 2.1 attendees per property from 2.5 the week prior, across approximately 12,000 open homes tracked by Ray White.

The mood varied not just between cities but between the higher and lower ends of the market too.

Attendance was up slightly across the 250 open houses tracked by Sydney real estate agency BresicWhitney on Saturday, director Shannan Whitney said.

Given they were predominantly in the prime inner-city metro market, about 90 per cent of BresicWhitney's properties are purchased by owner-occupiers, who were feeling more positive than investors post-budget, Whitney said.

Assessing the effect of the federal budget on the Australian housing market, CBA economist Trent Saunders said the budget’s impact on prices was likely to be concentrated in the parts of the market where investors are most active.

“Apartments, townhouses and lower‑priced established dwellings are likely to be more affected than owner‑occupier‑dominated detached housing markets,” he said.

“A lot has happened since we last updated our housing price forecasts in early March. In addition to the housing policy changes, the outlook for the cash rate has also changed, while the ongoing conflict in the Middle East has created a much more uncertain environment and increased housing construction costs,” Saunders said.

With these impacts in mind, CommBank had updated its forecasts for home prices, saying dwelling price growth was now expected to slow to 3 per cent over the year to December 2026, compared to a previous estimate of 5 per cent.