A valuation gap that widens is the market changing its mind slowly.

Why do asking prices and offers drift further apart on the same streets for months before anything gives? Because the market is changing its mind, and doing it slowly, since nobody wants to be the first to say so.

Each side prices from a different source. Sellers price from memory, from what the neighbour got a while back, and an agent who wants the mandate is not eager to argue. Buyers price from what the bank will lend and from the houses they have already seen sitting unsold. The bank's valuer works from registered sales, which lag behind both. For a while every party can believe the others are being unreasonable.

The shift shows in the paperwork first. Offers come in with more suspensive conditions attached. Bond approvals arrive for less than the purchase price because the valuation came in lower, and buyers have to find the difference in cash or step away. Listings that would once have sold within weeks get a price adjustment, then another.

From inside a single sale it all feels personal, as if this particular buyer is trying their luck. I think that is the hardest part to see past. The same gap is opening on every listing in the area, and the sellers who read it as a slow shift get to choose their price before the market chooses it for them.