Property buyers kept their cards close to their chest at Melbourne’s weekend auctions, upping the pressure on sellers.

In many suburbs, there was considerable “pushback” against vendor quotes for auction properties, with prospective purchasers either making offers well below the published quotes or not bidding at all.

The trend to auction stalemates was reflected in a low 60 per cent clearance rate from 740 auction results reported on Saturday to the Domain Group, as well as by an upsurge in fussy buyers.

“Buyers are becoming more critical and that is very evident,” said long-established real estate agent Greg Hocking, from Greg Hocking Holdsworth.

“It has been going on for a few months now, and we seem to be on a glide path. We had a couple of decent sales today, but there were a couple of others where prospective buyers just stood there and did nothing – it’s a mixed bag at the moment.”

Mr Hocking said any property that had a “wrinkle” or a fault was coming under close scrutiny from buyers who were biding their time.

Saturday’s auction market – in which agents did not report the results of 170 scheduled auctions – tossed up highs and lows; and for vendors, there were more lows than highs.

There are still tearaway results, albeit fewer of them compared to this time last year.

A contemporary house in Malvern sold for $330,000 above reserve to produce one of the weekend’s best results.

Buyers’ advocacy Woledge Hatt said the sale of the two-year-old home at 18 Plant Street, opened on a $3 million vendor bid. The Marshall White auction became a four-way contest, with the property declared on the market at $3.6 million and selling for $3.93 million.

There were also numerous auction pass-ins of $1.5 million to $3.5 million properties in suburbs such as Armadale, Malvern East, Prahran, Brighton, Hampton, Carlton North and Fitzroy North. Frequently, these higher-priced homes were passed in on a vendor bid.

Inner-suburban apartments below $700,000 typically outperformed houses in the inner ring, and there was robust demand for entry-level houses in most outer suburbs.

In Collingwood, a classy warehouse apartment with city views at 701/103 Oxford Street, could have been expected to sell strongly if it had been put up for auction 12 months ago. But on Saturday, when the two-level unit was offered to the market, it met a lukewarm response.

WB Simpson & Son auctioneer Richard Simpson told a crowd of 50 onlookers that the seventh floor unit was the best in the block. Even so, he had to place a $1.25 million vendor bid to crank up the auction.

A mature couple then offered $1.26 million, and another $1.28 million vendor bid was tossed into the mix before the couple offered $1.29 million and the unit was passed in.

The bidding activity was below the property’s quoted range of $1.365 million to $1.4 million. A later offer of $1.365 million was knocked back and the home is now listed for sale for $1.42 million.

Mr Simpson, the president of the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, said sellers were looking to achieve the prices they would have got at this time last year.

“Buyers are willing to walk away because there is no anxiety in the market any more and no feeling that, ‘I’ve got to buy now because tomorrow the price will be higher,'” he said.

“The buyers are not rushing to put their name on any contracts if they fear that a property might be overpriced.”

Normally, when a residential market hits the mature point of a growth cycle and median prices trend down, the supply of property tightens up considerably. But this isn’t happening in Melbourne just yet.

Listing activity is quite strong across the city. The market is being driven by owner-occupiers and the locations in which they want to live. In addition, most sellers are well motivated: they have bought a new home and need to sell an old one or they are keen to reduce debt. These factors are playing on the minds of prospective buyers, some of whom believe there will be a further lowering of prices in spring.

But it’s vital to remember that Melbourne’s property scene has many segments and micro-markets. Some – such as downsizer-tailored homes in the inner-ring and bayside areas, rare contemporary homes in heritage-dominated areas, trophy homes above $5 million and houses below $750,000 – are being more hotly pursued than other property types.

This weekend’s preliminary Melbourne auction clearance rate of 60 per cent was below the 61.3 per cent that was initially reported on the previous weekend, a figure that was revised down to 57 per cent last week.

Economists say that when finalised clearance rates are in the low 50 per cent range, it’s a trend historically associated with falling prices.

Domain Group data scientist Nicola Powell said conditions were certainly softer than they were a year ago but the Melbourne market was gaining an improved balance between demand and supply.

The big issue going forward is resolving the stalemate between buyers and sellers.

Nelson Alexander sales director Arch Staver passed in properties in the inner city and the inner north on the weekend.

He said buyers and sellers needed to be aware of the importance of negotiation in property transactions.