Super rich home buyers in Sydney are snapping up luxury Harbour properties at "bargain" prices / File

And they're getting a bargain, sales figures from the June quarter reveal, with several of the mansions being sold for lower than expected prices.

Nine of the 10 properties were on the Harbour - grocery magnate John David's Palm Beach home for $10 million ($2 million less than reported asking price) was the exception.

At Carrara Rd, Vaucluse, a property changed hands for an estimated $26.75 million, the highest sale of the year so far.

But that was still below the rumoured $30 million asking price for the property.

Sales of prestige homes were up 3.35 per cent on the previous quarter, a report by valuer Dyson Austen for the NSW Real Estate Institute showed.

Over the same quarter, interest rates rose by 0.5 per cent while the stock market shed 11.6 per cent.

The prestige market bottomed in the June quarter of 2009.

It had since risen by more than 9 per cent. But this lags overall Sydney house prices, which have risen by 21.4 per cent over the same period, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics June House Price Indexes.

Over the same period, the RBA increased the cash rate by 1.5 per cent.

Dyson Austen director Simon Feilich said that, unlike the rest of the market, buyers at the prestige level were unaffected by interest rate moves.

The 8.4 per cent depreciation of the dollar during the quarter was the main reason the pointy end of the market continued to recover.

Despite the eight-figure price tags on most sales, buyers were still looking for bargains, he said.

"Even at these prices, if you're getting a property for couple of million less than they're asking it is still a bargain,'' Mr Feilich said.

He expected the recovery to remain subdued because of the global situation.

"We are off the bottom but I don't think real estate anywhere around the world is just walking out the door,'' he said.

Ray White Double Bay sales executive Elliott Plack, who handled the Carrara Rd sale, said local buyers were still active in the market.

"If the past six months trend is anything to go by then I think the market will continue to pick up,'' Mr Plack said.

Despite the gradual recovery, Sydney's luxury market is well off its 2008 peak, when $198 million was splurged on the top 10 properties in one quarter.

Most expensive homes sold in Sydney in the June quarter
1. Carrara Rd, Vaucluse $26.75m
2. Drumalbyn Rd, Bellevue Hill $20m
3. Bay St, Mosman $11m
4. Barrenjoey Rd, Palm Beach $10m
5. Wolseley Rd, Point Piper $10m
6. Gladswood Gardens, Double Bay $9-9.5m
7. Vaucluse Rd, Vaucluse $9m
8. Chamberlain Ave, Rose Bay $8.5m
9. Rosemont Ave, Woollahra $8m
10. Warringah Rd, Mosman $7.85m