Weekend temperatures didn’t drop & neither did auction results

Across the combined capital cities this week, the number of properties taken to auction increased dramatically, with 3,232 auctions held; significantly higher than what has been recorded over the same period across previous years, with auction volumes generally reaching their seasonal peaks around March. 

The record highs for the number of auctions were confined to the Sydney and Melbourne markets, where auction numbers were the highest on record for the month of February.

Despite auctions reaching record highs for February, the combined capital city preliminary clearance rate also reached a new record high over the year to date.

78.6 per cent of auctions recorded a positive result this week, which is higher than the 71.4 per cent last year, across a lower volume of auctions (2,701).

Overall activity has increased week-on-week, with volumes increasing across all the capital cities, with clearance rates also rising in most capital cities with the exception of Canberra and Perth, where clearance rates fell over the week.

Across Melbourne, this week’s preliminary clearance rate rose to 80.1 per cent, up from 75.7 per cent last week and remaining above the clearance rate for the city one year ago (74.8 per cent). 

This week, the Melbourne housing market saw a substantial increase in volumes, with 1,613 auctions held, higher than the 1,091 held last week and also higher than a year ago when there were 1,347 Melbourne auctions held over the week.

Of the 9 individual Melbourne sub-regions, this week the strongest performer, in terms of clearance rate was the Outer East region.

So far, CoreLogic has collected 77 results for the region and the preliminary result shows 87.0 per cent of these auctions were successful.

Sydney’s preliminary auction clearance rate increased to 81.5 per cent this week, across a higher volume of auctions. 

Last week, Sydney’s clearance rate was 80.6 per cent, while one year ago results show that 72.1 per cent of Sydney homes taken to auction were successful.

This week volumes were higher, up to 1,169 from 856 last week and also higher than what was seen over the same week last year, when 919 Sydney homes were taken to auction over the week.

The Inner West sub-region of Sydney has shown the strongest performance so far this week, with 90.2 per cent of the 61 reported results selling.

There were 174 Brisbane homes taken to auction this week, with 99 results reported so far.

The preliminary clearance rate for the city is 63.3 per cent, up from 47.1 per cent last week and higher than one year ago, when 57.4 per cent of the 179 properties taken to auction were successful.

Across the Gold Coast 40 results have been reported so far, with a success rate of 55.0 per cent (22 sales).

This week, Adelaide saw a preliminary clearance rate of 76.3 per cent, with 80 reported results across a total of 121 scheduled auctions.

In comparison, over the previous week Adelaide’s clearance rate was 65.8 per cent and 64.0 per cent one year ago.

There were 46 Perth auctions this week, with a preliminary clearance rate of 21.4 per cent. 

Last week, 31.0 per cent of the 42 auctions held were successful.

Across Canberra a total of 100 auctions were held this week, compared to 92 last week and 75 at the same time last year.

Canberra’s preliminary clearance rate of 77.3 per cent is lower than it was the previous week (80.2 per cent).

In Tasmania, 6 auctions were reported to CoreLogic with 3 sales.