Why sellers are walking away from a hot market This apartment at 1/30 Ashburner Street, Manly, sold at auction on Saturday for $817,500 - $117,500 over the reserve. There is a growing contradiction in the Sydney property market - the more the market improves the more sellers turn their back on it. The number of properties listed for sale has fallen again over July, down 2.1 per cent on June. The figures released by SQM Research show that there were 23,207 homes on the market last month - 17 per cent below July 2012. The election is certainly playing a part in sellers' reluctance to go to market but experts say that is not the only factor at play. "There is no doubt an aspect of greed," said Louis Christopher, managing director of SQM Research. Sellers are holding off in the hopes of getting higher prices down the track. Mr Christopher said the sustained improvement in the property market has reinvigorated the idea that property as an asset will continue to improve in value. "The last time Sydney had a sustained property recovery was really from 2001 to 2003," he said. It has been a long time since Sydney has really seen a strong real estate recovery and this may well be it. AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver said while it was a "surprise" to see listings down on last year, it most likely reflected overconfident sellers. "Sellers are working on the assumption that the strengthening buyer demand will continue post-election," he said. And it probably will. The regions with the lowest number of listings are the areas that were hit hardest by the GFC. Listings on the northern beaches are down 26.4 per cent on the same time last year. But in some parts of the peninsula vendors are capitalising on the shortage of listings. An apartment at 1/30 Ashburner Street, Manly, sold at auction on Saturday for $817,500 - $117,500 over the reserve. The two-bedroom apartment was bought by an investor who saw the property for the first time an hour before the auction. Selling agent Anthony O'Gorman for O'Gorman and Partners said the lack of stock was breeding "fierce" buyers. "Purely through the competition between buyers prices have surged," he said. Another severely undersupplied market is the lower north shore, where listings are down 26.2 per cent on the same time last year. As a result the Saturday auction market on the lower north shore has been very competitive. The lower north shore recorded the best regional result in Sydney on Saturday with a clearance rate of 87 per cent. Strong competition between buyers has pushed prices up. The latest data from Australian Property Monitors showed the median house price for the lower north shore rose by 10.9 per cent over the June quarter to an all-time high of $1.5 million. Though SQM Research findings show overall listings are down, the senior economist at APM, Andrew Wilson, points to an increase in auction numbers. Over the month of July, 1577 properties went under the hammer - 16.5 per cent more than the same month last year.