The Sydney auction market stumbled on Saturday with clearance rates dropping below 60 per cent. Auctioneers across the city found themselves presiding over standoffs as prospective buyers endeavoured to stare down vendors on asking prices.

The strategic tension between buyers and sellers was highlighted by the large number of “pass-in negotiated” auction sales.

The clearance rate of 58.1 per cent was one of the lowest results of the year.

But, as ever, the market tossed up erratic and area-specific results.

The robust demand for well-located, inner-ring “move straight in” family homes was demonstrated on Saturday afternoon at a hot auction for a new-build house at 88 Park Road, Hunters Hill.

The five-bedroom property attracted pre-registrations from five families. Three of them made bids, pushing the home to an under-the-hammer sale price of $5.8 million, which was $700,000 up on the $5.1 million reserve.

“The final price eclipsed the price point where everyone thought it would end up, that’s for sure,” said Paul Cavarra, from McGrath Hunters Hill.

“We had over 150 groups through during the campaign, 60 of them on the first Saturday the property was open for inspection.”

He said the result set a new benchmark for the area: “Given that the non-peninsula side of Hunters Hill doesn’t have any views, to get a number like $5.8 million was great.”

However, it was a lukewarm market in other pockets of the city.

Domain posted a city-wide auction clearance rate of 58.1 per cent for Saturday from 378 reported auctions. Another 76 properties were withdrawn, and agents did not report the results of a further 216 scheduled auctions.

The under-reporting by agents of auction results points to a weakness in demand. Last weekend’s initial auction clearance rate of 61.3 per cent was subsequently revised down to 51.5 per cent.

With 216 results still to be counted for this weekend, the finalised clearance rate could be below 50 per cent – a hefty drop on the 74.6 per cent auction performance figure notched up on the same weekend last year.

The ball was in the buyer’s court at the auction of a heritage-protected house at 9 Wardoo Road, Willoughby.

Ray White Chatswood licensee Robert McElhone said six would-be buyers pre-registered for the auction and three of them competed until the home was passed in at $2.45 million.

Negotiations continued inside the house with one party who agreed to purchase the property for an undisclosed amount above $2.45 million.

Mr McElhone said his selling staff had continued to quote the property at $2.4 million throughout the campaign and the eventual sale price was “not far above our price guide”.

A similar on-the-money result was seen in Annandale, where a deceased estate at 53 Susan Street was on the market for the first time in 62 years.

James Burke from Callagher said 14 would-be buyers requested contracts for the property and four parties pre-registered.

Because of this, he had been confident the original-condition timber home would sell at auction and reach its $1.5 million reserve.

“The auction did not provide $1.5 million but we have secured $1.5 million post-auction,” Mr Burke said. “The property got to $1.41 million at the auction.”

The house sat on 387 square metres of land, generous for the suburb. But there were catches: half the block is in a flood affected zone and cannot be built upon, there is no parking and the existing heritage-protected dwelling’s foundations are in poor shape.

Mr Burke said there was good demand for units in Leichhardt, with more mature buyers purchasing these assets to include in superannuation funds.

He expects the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s move last week to scrap a 10 per cent cap on the growth in investor loans for individual lenders to stimulate buying by smaller investors. The banking regulator imposed the 10 per cent “speed limit” on banks in 2014 in a bid to slow surging property prices in east-coast capital cities.

Mr McElhone also pointed to uneven results in different precincts, noting that in April he had auctioned and sold fairly basic 1970s-style units in Chatswood for more than $200,000 above their reserves.

He said in the past 10 years the median price for Chatswood houses had risen by 150 per cent, while Willoughby and Roseville house prices had gone up by 95 per cent to 100 per cent: “It has been quite a spike for the Chatswood houses, which is obviously driven by the strong local Chinese and general Asian buyer market.”

The highest reported apartment sale on Saturday was a unit at 10/45 Wharf Road, Birchgrove. The property fetched $2.63 million through BresicWhitney Balmain.

Higher priced houses that failed to find a buyer included a beachfront pile at 51 Taloombi Street, Cronulla. The five-bedroom contemporary home with an indoor spa and pool was passed in for $6.5 million by Location Real Estate.