Residential property vendors are awakening from their slumber. Sydney has regained its mantle as the country's busiest capital city property market. There were 94,500 house and unit sales across Sydney in 2007 narrowly bettering Melbourne's 93,000 sales. During 2005 and 2006, Melbourne recorded more transactions than Sydney. But Sydney's sale volume is well below the 2002 peak when 132,000 sales were recorded. Sales volumes in Melbourne, Adelaide (30,000) and Brisbane (70,000) are closing in on the boomtime highs, according to RP Data research. "Melbourne's performance was not bad for a market with almost 200,000 fewer properties than Sydney's 1.6 million dwellings," an RP Data analyst, Tim Lawless, said. "Sydney's brief time spent in the No. 2 position demonstrates the relative weakness of the market during the 2005/06 period," he said. In 1998 Sydney recorded 36 per cent of all house and unit sales on the mainland. But by last year Sydney's market share had whittled down to 28 per cent, mainly due to Brisbane's increased share from 13 per cent to 21 per cent over the period. The total number of residential sales in Brisbane has increased by 80 per cent over the nine years. Sydney house prices had a better run than units during 2007, says Australian Property Monitors research. The median house price rose 5 per cent from $528,000 to $553,000. "Growth in the median value of Sydney's units was sluggish," Michael McNamara, of Australian Property Monitors, said. "Values rose 2 per cent during 2007 from $364,000 to $370,000." Coming soon to Domain.com.au: Your free PDF download of The Sun-Herald Domain Property Guide, containing median prices across 680 suburbs. The Sun-Herald Domain Property Guide indicates there are 75 suburbs with median prices of more than $1 million, up from 60 suburbs in 2006. Source From SMH