Capital city auction activity surges to 3-month high

There was a surge in capital city auction activity last week (ended 18 June), making up for the cooler activity over the King’s Birthday long weekend.

According to preliminary figures from property analytics company CoreLogic, a total of 1,951 homes were scheduled for auction last week, the highest number of auctions in 11 weeks.

While the figure was almost double that of the week prior, it was 22.8 per cent below the 2,528 auctions held during the same week in 2022.

However, while the number of auctions was high, preliminary data from the 1,483 results collected so far showed that 72.5 per cent of auctions returned a successful result.

This is a 10-bp increase from last week’s preliminary clearance rate of 72.4 per cent (which was later revised down to 68.2 per cent at final figures).

It is worth noting that for the past seven weeks, combined capital city preliminary clearance rates have consistently been 70 per cent or higher. In comparison, this time last year, only 55.2 per cent of auctions were successful.

However, Sydney and Melbourne both recorded their lowest clearance rate in two months.

Melbourne emerged as the busiest auction market last week, with 863 homes auctioned across the city. However, this number was 31.8 per cent lower than the equivalent week in 2022, when 1,266 homes were auctioned.

Melbourne recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 72.9 per cent based on 705 results collected, according to CoreLogic, its lowest preliminary clearance rate in eight weeks (down 80 bps from the previous week’s preliminary rate of 73.7 per cent, which was later revised to 68.7 per cent at final numbers).

In Sydney, 772 homes were auctioned last week, the highest number in 11 weeks. The NSW capital’s preliminary clearance rate of 74.5 per cent was also the lowest in seven weeks and is 1.4 percentage points below last week’s preliminary clearance rate of 75.9 per cent (72.2 per cent at final numbers).

So far, 14.1 per cent of the properties have been captured as ‘passed in’ from the 581 results collected. This is a significant increase of 6.1 percentage points from the 8.0 per cent reported in the preliminary result for the week prior.

Among the smaller capitals, Brisbane had the busiest auction market, with 138 homes auctioned, followed by Adelaide with 109 homes and Canberra with 52 homes. In the equivalent week of 2022, the combined smaller capitals held 47.8 per cent more auctions, totalling 467.

Canberra recorded the highest preliminary clearance rate of the smaller capitals, at 70.3 per cent based on the results collected so far. Adelaide, on the other hand, saw its preliminary clearance rate fall by 15.8 percentage points in the week, to 67.9 per cent. Additionally, Brisbane's preliminary clearance rate increased by 7.2 percentage points week on week, reaching 66.0 per cent.

Elsewhere, three out of the six results collected in Perth were successful, while two out of the four results collected in Tasmania last week were successful.

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