u/Patient-Gift6212

been keeping an eye on a few pockets around the middle/outer ring (toongabbie, blacktown, kellyville ridge etc) and noticing a pretty distinct pattern with failed auction campaigns lately.

a property goes to auction, passes in, and the vendor stubbornly lists it as private treaty at some inflated early-2025 price expectation.

but instead of holding firm forever, i'm seeing a bunch of them hit the 80 or 90 day mark and suddenly the guide gets quietly slashed by 100k+. just watched one in toongabbie that held out at 1.6m since may and finally surrendered, dropping to the low 1.4m mark this week.

seems like the holding costs and interest rates are finally starting to bite, or they just get sick of doing open homes every saturday for 3 months straight with no offers.

curious if anyone else is seeing this delayed capitulation on the ground right now or if it's just localized to the west/north-west?

been looking around lismore lately and something bugs me. feels like the whole town gets treated as "floods = cheap" but not every house actually floods the same right?

so i went through the ones for sale atm and checked the flood levels. gap is way bigger than i thought. some of them genuinely sit above the 1 in 100 line, others copped 2m+ through the floor in 2022. but the prices dont really seperate the two.. theyre all just LISMORE CHEAP

like theres one at 589k, nice character home, looks lovely.. then right at the bottom of the ad the 2022 flood was ~2.3m OVER the floorboards. and then a couple of the higher set ones look barely touched but priced about the same??

so my q for the ppl who actually know the area - is the market pricing this street by street, or is it just lazy and everything gets the cheap tag.. meaning the safe ones are actually underpriced?

genuinely keen to know cause im probably missing something

If you are tracking the recent Transport Oriented Development (TOD) and high-density rezoning changes across Sydney, you already know the state government just unlocked a gold rush for medium and high-density infill sites.

I’ve been building a custom data pipeline to bypass the standard portal filters and scan active listings for properties that hit a brutal "Developer Trifecta":

1. Massive Land Yield: Total footprint of 900m² or more (crucial for council approvals).
2. Transit Proximity: Located strictly within the 800m radius of a designated transit hub.
3. Zoning Upgrades: Already flagged for R3/R4 High Density or direct TOD precinct overlays.

After running the script across thousands of active listings, the data shows a massive disconnect. Regular buyers are ignoring these properties because agents market them as old or "original condition" deceased estates, completely masking their true value. But to a developer, the existing house doesn't matter—the value is entirely unlocked by the new planning controls.

the tracker flagged three specific sites this week that highlight exactly where the smart money is looking:

• Site 1 (The Double Block Hub): A combined 1,200m² landholding right inside a major urban CBD corridor, completely primed for multi-dwelling development under newly adopted council planning controls.
• Site 2 (The R4 High-Density Goldmine): A massive level block of nearly 2,000m² with active R4 High-Density zoning, sitting literally a stone's throw from a major train station and shopping precinct.
• Site 3 (The New TOD Precinct Play): A dual-lot assembly yielding close to 1,000m² inside a newly designated TOD precinct, currently generating immediate rental income while the development logic is being drafted.

The Takeaway: If you are man ually looking for development sites using standard filters, you are competing with everyone else. The real value is hidden in properties where the text description masks the zoning upgrades and proximity metrics.

Disclaimer: I don't sell property and I am not an agent. I'm just a data engineer mapping real estate pipelines for fun.

11 Eastern Road, Rooty Hill — DA approved for 5 townhouses, been listed 685 days. At 80% LTV and 6.5% variable, the vendor has paid roughly $150,000 in interest since listing. Not counting council rates, insurance, or maintenance.

Another one in Penrith — R3 zoned, 419 days, bought in 2021. Around $103K in interest gone.

At what point does that holding cost pressure become the buyer's negotiating leverage? Has anyone here actually used this angle when making an offer?