VICTORIA'S real estate industry could start hemorrhaging jobs this year, with a 25 per cent slump in transactions during 2008 forcing suburban offices to cut back.

Real Estate Institute of Victoria chief executive Enzo Raimondo said his recent discussions with members confirmed that the industry was set for a contraction.

"When you have 25 per cent less transactions, you can't have the same number of people dealing with them."

Mr Raimondo said the REIV's corporate membership had remained static at 1900 agencies, but he expected a reduction in the number of individual members.

He said individual REIV memberships had fallen to 6200 from 6500.

"A number of agencies have put off quite a few staff," Mr Raimondo said.

It comes as the REIV's latest report on property prices shows that the Melbourne metropolitan median price for a home fell 0.9 per cent in the December quarter to $426,000. The median price for an apartment eased 1.1 per cent to $365,000.

Annually, the Melbourne property market fell sharply, in line with most asset classes in the grip of the economic crisis, with the median value down 9.7 per cent in 2008.

Wakelin Property Advisory director Monique Wakelin said the bulk of the property sales in the December quarter were in the more affordable suburbs thanks to the recent increase in the first-home buyer's grant.

At the upper end of the property scale, in the leafy expensive suburbs of Melbourne, activity was marked by sellers driven to desperation by depreciating shares and other assets.

"They are not so much dumping their homes, but what they are having to do is sell because they have used a whole heap of equity in their home to gear into the stockmarket.

"It's all the usual high-end suburbs … such as Brighton, Toorak, Kew and Malvern," he said.