Along the country's wealthiest coastal strips and in its most exclusive suburbs, the collateral damage from the credit crisis is piling up.
Three of the sprawling mansions on Hedges Avenue, the beachfront Gold Coast street known locally as "millionaires' row", have "contract default" or "mortgagee sale" stamped across their marketing advertisements on the internet. At least another three are listed as "urgent sale", or "owner meets the market".
"Live the dream", the catchcall of Hedges Avenue real estate, is scattered more frugally through the ads of the 20 mansions and upmarket homes listed for sale on realestate.com.au.
On Sydney's exclusive northern beaches, there have been dramatic reductions in house prices. One home on Ocean Road, a premier Palm Beach location valued at $17million three years ago, recently sold for $12 million, according to real estate agents.
Around the country, prestige property prices have fallen up to 20 per cent in the hardest-hit luxury suburbs, with most of the falls happening in the latter part of last year, according to figures compiled for The Weekend Australian by property researcher RP Data.
In Vaucluse, in Sydney's east, the value of homes sold fell 22.2per cent in the three months to November 30 compared with the previous quarter, Perth's Peppermint Grove was down 10.6 per cent, while prices in Sydney's Mosman and Palm Beach, Queensland's Noosa Heads and Victoria's Portsea dropped between 1 and 4 per cent over the period.
Despite the mortgagee offerings, the Gold Coast's Mermaid Beach bucked the trend, with prices rising 12.1 per cent for the quarter, RP Data found.
At a suburb level, one or two very big sales can move prices dramatically.
For those homes on the sales block, the average listing price in Mermaid Beach is falling, down from $1.65 million in the September quarter to $1.49 million in the following three months, according to RP Data senior researcher Cameron Kusher.
Sydney's Point Piper, where the city's most expensive homes are located, showed the biggest fall in listing prices, down from $12.12 million in the September quarter to $10 million in the December quarter.
"Anyone looking to sell will have to accept they won't get the prices of 12 to 18 months ago," Mr Kusher said.
Liam O'Hara, senior economist for researcher Australian Property Monitors, said home owners in exclusive suburbs were often selling to pay down debt.
"These were the suburbs that people thought would be insulated, but are becoming the worst-affected areas as the finance industry jobs market drys up," hesaid.
Sydney's northern beaches have been "belted", with values generally 20 per cent lower than they were a year ago, according to Ray White's Noel Nicholson.
"Before the financial crisis, a lot of people in the finance sector used their cash bonuses to buy a second house up here," Mr Nicholson said.
He said listings had doubled from this time last year, as many part-time residents sold their weekend and holiday homes.
Cassandra Bancroft, who is selling her weekend home on Rayner Road on Sydney's Whale Beach, said: "Everyone's playing a little wait-and-see. But we're confident that the home is saleable. We think there's someone out there who'll love it as much as we do, and will pay the right price."
The Bancrofts expect more than $6 million for the home they built three years ago. Their home is one of six properties for sale on Rayner Road in recent weeks.
Additional reporting: Jared Owens, Maurice Dunlevy
