Melbourne auction market in hibernation

The property research group’s auctions data for the week ending 13 September showed that only 14 homes were taken to auction in Melbourne last week.

Of the 11 results collected so far, only three were successful, and they were all sold prior to auction, while the remaining eight auction results were reported as withdrawn.

This dragged the preliminary clearance rate in the city to just 27.3 per cent.

Over the previous week, 28 auctions were held across the city, while this time last year, 826 homes went under the hammer.

New property listings in Melbourne have continued to plummet, dropping by 77.4 per cent over the 12-month period to 1,458 homes.

Across the combined capitals, there were 17,261 new listings, a decrease of 23.9 per cent.

There was a sizeable drop of 52.9 per cent in new listings in Darwin over the 12-month period, with only 72 new properties entering the market.

A strong result across the Sydney auction market buoyed the combined capital city preliminary auction clearance rate last week, which held firm relative to the previous week across a lower volume of auctions.

There were 823 homes taken to auction across the capitals last week, down from 866 over the previous week and 1,639 this time last year.

Of the 657 results collected so far, 67.3 per cent were successful, roughly in line with the previous week’s preliminary result of 67.5 per cent, which later revised down to 60.5 per cent at final collection.

Over the same week last year, a final clearance rate of 72.8 per cent was recorded across the combined capitals.

In Sydney, a total of 606 homes went under the hammer last week, similar to the previous week’s 608 auctions.

Of the 507 auction results collected so far, 70.4 per cent were successful, up slightly from the previous week’s preliminary result of 69.5 per cent, which later revised down to a final result of 62.3 per cent.

This time last year, there were 585 auctions held in Sydney, with a final clearance rate of 76.0 per cent.

Across the other capital cities, Canberra recorded the highest preliminary clearance rate of 83.0 per cent across a lower volume of just 55 auctions, while Adelaide recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 75.9 per cent across 53 auctions.

There were 82 auctions in Brisbane, with a preliminary success rate of 40.4 per cent, while in Perth, there were only 11 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 20.0 per cent.

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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.