Auctions rise despite Easter public holiday

A total of 2,170 homes were taken to auction across the combined capital cities in the week ending 11 April 2021 – a significant rise from 845 auctions held over the previous week, CoreLogic’s latest Property Market Indicator has revealed.

Apart from an increase in volumes, capital cities also saw an improvement in the preliminary auction clearance rate, with 79.9 per cent of homes selling – up from last week’s 79.4 per cent, which was later revised down to a final clearance rate of 77.1 per cent.

Last year, a lower 634 auctions were recorded, with only 30.6 per cent cleared and 56 per cent withdrawn.

“Over the same week last year, it was not only Easter which dampened auction activity, but also the imposition of social distancing measures, which included the banning of on-site auctions,” the report noted.

Melbourne led with the highest number of auctions last week, at 1,035, followed by Sydney with 814.

Other capital cities saw lower results, with Brisbane at 123 auctions, Adelaide at 95, Canberra at 79, Perth at 18 and Hobart at six.

Looking into each capital, Canberra led with the highest preliminary clearance rate at 90.1 per cent, followed by Sydney with 82.8 per cent, Adelaide with 82.6 per cent and Brisbane with 80.9 per cent.

Meanwhile, Melbourne cleared 77.2 per cent of last week’s auctions, while Perth cleared 44.4 per cent.

Home values

Combined capitals also saw an improvement in home values last week, rising by 0.4 per cent.

All capital cities saw home values rise, with Sydney and Brisbane leading the way with a 0.5 per cent rise on the previous week, followed by Adelaide with 0.4 per cent and Melbourne and Perth with 0.2 per cent.

Over the month, Sydney and Brisbane hold the top spots with increases of 2.7 per cent rise and 2.0 per cent, respectively. They are followed by Melbourne with 1.8 per cent, Adelaide with 1.5 per cent and Perth with 1.3 per cent. 

Annual results also favour Sydney, where home values rose by 7.5 per cent, followed by Brisbane with 5.4 per cent, Melbourne and Perth with 5.3 per cent and Adelaide with 3.7 per cent.

With prices consistently rising, Sydney currently holds the title for the most expensive capital city, with the private treaty median price at $880,000 for houses and $661,500 for units.

Meanwhile, the most affordable capital city for houses is Perth with a median private treaty price of $505,000, while Darwin had the most affordable median price for units at $362,500.

Private treaty sales represent around 85 per cent of all dwelling sales across the country, according to CoreLogic. The statistics were calculated across houses and units sold over the most recent four-week period.

Time on market

Of the capital cities, Sydney currently still has the shortest median time on market for houses at 23 days, followed by Hobart with 24 days, Adelaide with 28 days, Melbourne and Darwin with 29 days, Perth with 30 days, and Brisbane and Canberra with 36 days.

For units, Hobart holds the shortest median time on market at 20 days, while Darwin holds the longest at 52 days.

All capital cities had median vendor discounting for houses at over 2 per cent, with Adelaide leading at 2.6 per cent and Melbourne having the lowest at 2.2 per cent.

Meanwhile, median vendor discounting for units was highest in Adelaide at 2.5 per cent and lowest in Canberra at 1.9 per cent.