Yep, this has been my experience in the St George area. Been looking the last month or two and keep getting blown out at auctions by cashed up people who are bidding 50k+ over what things were selling for at the start of the year.

I took it a step further and managed to negotiate a purchase before it even got advertised. Agent texted me a link thursday 2 weeks ago, I inspected the place the same arvo, he said vendor is keen to get it sold quickly so I made an offer first thing monday morning. They came back with a counter offer 5k higher but with the requirement that I had to sign same day unconditionally and with a cooldown waiver because they were otherwise going to commit to the advertising campaign. Checked the strata report, got read the riot act by my conveyancer, discussed it with my partner and parents and then pulled the trigger and signed. I'm extremely risk adverse so it was a horrible feeling for me but I didnt see how else we could compete with the market currently.

Thankfully I think we got a great deal and that feeling seems to be confirmed by the bank who formally approved the loan without even doing a valuation.