Suggesting that the released figures and housing indices from ABS, RP Data & the REI bodies cover up declines is a very long bow IMO.
ABS use a weighted whereby houses in are classified according to clusters such as location, socio-economic conditions etc. Those individual clusters are then given a weight which is derived from the value of property in a given area which remains fixed. So whether or not rich people are transacting now at $10M+ is irrelelvant, what is relevant is whether that figure is higher or lower than previous periods.
RP Data's methodology is here: http://www.rpdata.com/images/stories/content/research/indices_basing_aus.pdf
The Real Estate Institutes (REIQ etc) use the median value in a given location if that location has had a certain number of sales eg. 10 sales for Brisbane CBD.
In light of all these different methodologies, you get the 1.9-2% drop in Australian property as shown by the different organisations. If what you are seeing differs from this either a) there was not enough volume in a location to be statistically significant b) the area you are refering to does not hold a large weight.
Also, the people who actually use these numbers on a professioal level are not RE agents. The RBA for inflation, IMF, policy makers and financial institutions all rely on this info to make decisions. There would be no reason for it to be manipulated as it defeats the purpose of those using it.
