Sydney’s eastern suburbs have emerged as the weakest market in the city with house prices falling 6 per cent in the three months to September, new data shows.

In fact, all but two regions recorded price falls over the September, with the south-west the next worst performer (-4 per cent), followed by the once-red hot inner west, which fell 3.9 per cent, according to the Domain Group State of the Market report.

The most resilient markets were the northern beaches, where the median house price increased 0.4 per cent to $1,907,000, and the south – with no price change at $1.3 million.

Domain Group chief economist Andrew Wilson said the results showed the downturn was widespread across Sydney, with affordability starting to bite even in the higher-priced city and east where the median was $2.17 million.

“More than $2 million is expensive in anyone’s language – clearly buyers are thinking twice,” Dr Wilson said.

Good Deeds buyer’s agency principal Veronica Morgan, who actively buys eastern suburbs real estate, wasn’t convinced the market had slowed across the board.

“We have noticed a softening but it’s sporadic,” Ms Morgan said.

She’d also noticed more substandard homes coming onto the market, which she described as a market in transition.

Brad Caldwell-Eyles, managing director of 1st City, said there had been a “slight cooling in enthusiasm and a decrease in that sense of urgency for existing residential property” in the city and eastern areas.

But he said it was likely a softer period due to the increase in homes for sale over spring.

“Bottom line, recent history shows that we can expect this spring cooling in established residential enthusiasm however come Australia Day, that fire will be stoked back into life.”

Richard Baini director of Richard Matthews Real Estate, located in Strathfield, was not convinced the inner west had moved into a downturn, despite the data showing a 3.9 per cent decline for houses and an even steeper 4.9 per cent drop for apartments.

Instead, he described it as an “adjustment quarter” with more realistic pricing from vendors and reasonable expectations across the board.

He put the softness in the apartment market down to a decline in off-the-plan sales that had the effect of changing the mix of properties on the market to secondhand stock, which is typically more affordable, thus skewing the median price.

Apartment prices fell in all areas except the south west, west, Central Coast and northern beaches.

But the worst performer for apartments, outside of the Blue Mountains, was the lower north where prices had declined 6.7 per cent over the quarter to a median of $900,000. They were up 0.1 per cent over the year.

House prices in the lower north fell 2.6 per cent over the quarter to $2.41 million, but were up 2 per cent over the year.

Richardson & Wrench Mosman director Robert Simeon said this was an inevitable outcome after such a run in the market.

“At the moment the market is fatiguing and we’re going to see a self-correction and then a line-ball market,” Mr Simeon said.

He said without “significant economic bad news like another GFC” it would be unlikely prices would drop significantly.

“There are fewer and fewer buyers at auction, but this is what happens after a boom.”

The western suburbs had also been seeing signs of a slowdown, Raine & Horne Blacktown’s Edwin Almeida said.

“We’re in for a rude shock and the cracks are starting to show,” Mr Almeida said.

He’d already seen some homes selling for less than they would have achieved six months ago.

Starr Partners chief executive Doug Driscoll said it was “simple economics” that the market was slowing down.

“For a long time, we were seeing an influx of investors from across Sydney looking to buy in the west and south-west and this volume applied extra pressure on the market,” Mr Driscoll said.

“External influences we wouldn’t normally experience in these parts of Sydney meant prices grew at an exaggerated rate.

“Now that there are fewer investors, and lenders are becoming increasingly prudent, I think it’s a case of the market now starting to find its natural level.”