3/4 of Australian auctions report success in winter

The week ended 9 July saw 1,418 homes go under the hammer across Australia, marking the quietest week since the June long weekend. Of the 1,066 results collected so far, 74.5 per cent have returned a positive result. This week’s preliminary clearance rate is 4.2 per cent higher than last week, which was the nation’s lowest in nine weeks.

Melbourne and Sydney shared the position as the nation’s busiest markets this week after both hosted 564 auctions.

In the Victorian capital, this represented an increase of 14 auctions on the previous week. In line with this activity increase, Melbourne’s preliminary clearance rate jumped 2.6 per cent to 72.8 per cent following the collection of 448 results up to this point. For the 13th consecutive week, the city’s preliminary clearance rate has remained above 70 per cent.

The city’s south-east, where 82.8 per cent of the 78 auctions ended successfully, was Melbourne’s strongest-performing subregion. In the west, which mustered a preliminary clearance rate of 56.4 per cent from 69 auctions, was the poorest-performing subregion.

Sydney’s 564 auctions represented a drop of nearly 100 from the previous week. Despite this, the city’s preliminary clearance rate rose 4.4 per cent to 75.6 per cent from 427 results collected so far. This rise in the number of successful auctions coincided with an increase in the withdrawal rate (13.6 per cent), while the number of properties passed in dipped to its lowest level (10.8 per cent) since mid-October 2021.

The Northern Beaches was the city’s most successful subregion after 94.7 per cent of its 24 auctions ended successfully. On the flip side, just 57.7 per cent of Sutherland’s 31 auctions recorded a positive result, making it the harbour city’s poorest-performing subregion.

Across the smaller capital cities, activity fell in Adelaide and Brisbane but jumped up in Canberra and Perth. Despite the declines, Brisbane (105) and Adelaide (103) were the busiest of these markets, followed by Canberra, where 70 auctions went down.

The South Australian capital continued recording a higher portion of successful results than any other market (86.2 per cent), its highest preliminary clearance rate since the last week of February 2022. Canberra reported a preliminary clearance rate of 76.3 per cent, followed by Brisbane’s 69.1 per cent.

Just two of the six results collected so far in Perth have been reported as successful, while no auctions were held in Tasmania this week.

CoreLogic is reporting the auction market is bracing for an unseasonal rise of around 12 per cent next week.

[RELATED: Winter’s most in-demand suburbs: PropTrack]