Is it the proof that we’ve been waiting for that the housing boom is back. While the global financial crisis made us all armchair investment analysts, now lower interest rates, government bonuses and the first home market boom has again made property the hot topic.

On any given Saturday huge numbers of prospective buyers are flocking to open houses everywhere.

Nowhere is the craze more evident than in the median home market, where young families are trying to make the most of the demand from first time buyers to sell and trade up for more space.

Melbourne’s resilient inner-city market has made last year’s economic collapse look like a mere hiccup as last weekends auction results reached late-2007 boom peaks.

Agents said the boom prices reflected Melbourne’s rapidly increasing population, the relaxation of foreign-investment rules and an increased desire from buyers to live close to the inner city.

These factors produced intense competition – up to six bidders – and high prices at many auctions.

Buxton Bentleigh’s Craig Williamson received a clear sign of the market’s resurgence on Saturday when he auctioned a double-storey brick home at 25 Atkinson Street, Bentleigh. It had last been sold in November 2007 for $1,271,000 but on Saturday it brought $1,275,000.

Mr Williamson said the market had had its ups and significant downs in the past 18 months but now it was ”back to where it was”.