Melbourne lockdown dents auction volumes

Property research group CoreLogic’s auctions summary for the week ending 6 June has revealed that there were 2,691 homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities last week, revising down from the 3,101 auctions predicted earlier last week.

CoreLogic attributed the downward revision to the extension of Melbourne’s lockdown, from Thursday, 3 June.

The preliminary clearance rate was 73.5 per cent, compared with 75.7 per cent over the previous week, which revised down to a final clearance rate of 73.5 per cent.

Amid the lockdown in Melbourne (where onsite auctions and property inspections are prohibited), there were 1,098 auctions held across the city, revising down from the 1,452 originally scheduled.

According to CoreLogic, the extended lockdown has impacted the preliminary clearance rate, which totalled 67.3 per cent, down from the 72.8 per cent preliminary clearance rate recorded the previous week, which revised down to 71.7 per cent at final figures.

Of the 935 auctions collected so far in Melbourne, 29.5 per cent were withdrawn, and of the 629 sold results, 59.0 per cent sold prior to auction.

Over the year to date and excluding the temporary lockdown period in February, the average proportion of auctions sold prior to the auction event was 26 per cent and only around 4.5 per cent of auctions were withdrawn, CoreLogic said.

There were 1,246 auctions held over the previous week in Melbourne, while only 195 homes were taken to auction this time in 2020 across the city, CoreLogic data showed.

There were 1,171 homes taken to auction across Sydney last week, compared with 1,174 auctions the previous week, and 398 this time last year, CoreLogic said.

The data showed that the preliminary clearance rate in Sydney was 79.6 per cent last week, down from 81.0 per cent the previous week, which revised down to 76.0 per cent at final figures.

Across the smaller markets, Canberra recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 78.5 per cent across 101 auctions, followed by Adelaide where a preliminary clearance rate of 73.3 per cent was recorded across 149 auctions. There were 152 auctions in Brisbane with a preliminary clearance rate of 69.0 per cent, and 16 auctions in Perth with a preliminary success rate of 61.5 per cent.

Home values up over 10 per cent YTD

CoreLogic’s Daily Home Value Index revealed that capital city home values spiked 10.3 per cent year to date and 9.5 per cent over the last 12 months.

Meanwhile, the index revealed that home values recorded a 2.0 per cent monthly rise and a 0.4 per cent weekly rise.

The number of new properties listed for sale were up 53.2 per cent over the past 12 months across the combined capital cities, but the total number of listings were down by 9 per cent over the past 12 months due to the COVID-19-related restrictions imposed in 2020, according to CoreLogic.

Housing finance activity plummeted by 10.4 per cent in NSW month-on-month, and 5.4 per cent nationally, the data showed.

The figures revealed that mortgage market activity was down in Tasmania (5.1 per cent), Victoria (5.0 per cent), Western Australia (3.4 per cent) and Queensland (0.1 per cent) but was up marginally in South Australia (0.3 per cent).

[Related: Building approvals down by 8.6%]

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.