BUYERS are retreating from the Melbourne property market at the rate of 600 a month, causing real estate professionals to predict an ''exhausted market'' with increasingly weak price growth throughout the rest of the year.
High auction clearance rates and record prices notwithstanding, official figures show the number of loans to buy houses in Victoria slipped from a record high of 15,300 in September to 13,400 in February after sliding in six out of the past eight months.
Victoria's slide of 12 per cent is the least severe in the nation. In New South Wales the number of loans slid by 27 per cent and in Queensland and South Australia by 25 and 29 per cent.
''This will lead to a slowing of price growth, no question about it,'' said Real Estate Institute national president David Airey.