Sydney home prices continued to rise last month, but the steam appears to be going from Melbourne’s market.

The mixed performance of Australia’s major cities, including a 2 per cent slide in Brisbane prices, resulted in a flat result overall for capital city home prices in February, according to the widely-watched RP Data – Rismark index.

Hobart posted the strongest gain of 1.4 per cent for the month, while Sydney prices maintained their momentum, rising 0.8 per cent.

However, Melbourne prices eased 0.2 per cent, along with Perth and Adelaide, and Canberra was down 0.8 per cent.

The mixed results still leave average capital city home prices 9.5 per cent higher than they were a year ago, with Sydney more than 13 per cent higher, and Melbourne almost 10 per cent up.

Outside the capital cities, home prices rose 0.6 per cent in January, and are up 2.8 per cent over the past year.

Tim Lawless says the lack of national home price growth last month is probably just a normal pause after two very strong months.

“The likelihood is that the weak reading for February is an adjustment from the strong readings in December and January rather than the beginning of a flat to negative growth phase across the macro level housing market,” noted RP Data’s research director Tim Lawless.