Auction clearance rates hold steady

Auction volumes across Australian capital cities held their ground over the weekend after springing back last weekend from a slump in volumes, thanks to two major sporting grand finals.

Data from CoreLogic’s Property Market Indicator Summary for the week ending 20 October revealed that there were just under 2,000 capital city homes taken to auction this week.

This means auction activities are holding relatively steady week-on-week, after last week saw 2,022 capital city homes auctioned.

The numbers suggest the spring selling season is back in full swing, and the sporting grand finals weekends were a blip.

Auction numbers across capital cities stood at 1,949 homes for the week, with 75.6 per cent returning a successful result, according to preliminary results. This is slightly down on last week’s preliminary figure of 77.3 per cent (which was revised down to 73.5 per cent at final figures).

According to CoreLogic, this week’s final figure will sit below that, given the lower preliminary figures.

There were 912 Melbourne homes taken to auction this week, 75.1 per cent of which returned a successful result, down on the 75.2 per cent final auction clearance last week when volumes were higher.

Sydney returned a preliminary auction clearance rate of 84.3 per cent this week across a similar volume of auctions week-on-week. There were 724 homes taken to auction this week, only nine short off last week’s figures, when 76.9 per cent cleared as at final figures.

In the same week in 2018, there were 1,087 Melbourne homes taken to auction, out of which 45.7 per cent cleared. In Sydney, only 44.6 per cent of the 675 homes auctioned managed to clear in the same week last year.

Across smaller markets, Brisbane and Tasmania were the only markets that saw an increase in volumes, while Canberra, Perth and Adelaide all saw a decrease in the number of homes taken to auction.

[Related: AFL final puts brakes on Melbourne auctions]

Malavika Santhebennur is the features editor on the mortgages titles at Momentum Media.

Before joining the team in 2019, Malavika held roles with Money Management and Benchmark Media. She has been writing about financial services for the past six years.