Drop in Sydney’s auction clearance rate
National clearance rate showed a small increase last week but Sydney well down and Melbourne on the rise.
SYDNEY’S auction clearance rate hit a six-year low last week despite a small uplift nationally.
Property data firm Cotality said 1939 capital city homes went to auction last week, an 11.1 per cent drop from the previous week, but still tracking higher than a year ago (+8.7 per cent) when 1784 home auctions were held.
The preliminary clearance rate rose 1.1 percentage points to 57.5 per cent, still a soft result but with highly mixed outcomes across different cities.
This was the fifth time in the past seven weeks that the early clearance rate had held below the 60 per cent mark and the third lowest result for the year-to-date.
Sydney’s preliminary clearance rate fell sharply last week, down six percentage points to 49.2 per cent, the weakest result since auctions were heavily disrupted during the early Covid period in April 2020.
Auction volumes also eased, with 616 homes taken to market, 14.9 per cent fewer than the previous week, though still 11 per cent above the same time last year.
The volume of auctions dropped below the 1000 mark in Melbourne, with 906 homes taken to market, down 14.9 per cent on the week prior but 1.8 per cent higher than a year ago.
The preliminary clearance rate showed a 3.7 percentage point rise, reaching 61.4 per cent, but this was still the fifth lowest early result so far this year, according to Cotality.
Brisbane hosted 177 auctions, marking an increase of 7.3 per cent from the preceding week and a rise of 32 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Last week, just over half of Brisbane auctions were successful (55.7 per cent), up from 53.7 per cent the previous week and the highest early result in four weeks.
Some 147 auctions went to market in Adelaide, a 41 per cent jump on the previous week’s volume, and 75.7 per cent of homes had reported a sale in the preliminary data, an 8.5 percentage point rise on the week prior and the strongest preliminary outcome since mid-March.
Perth recorded 25 auctions last week, the highest weekly volume since late last year, but only 38.9 per cent reported a successful result. Tasmania recorded no auctions.
An estimated 2650 auctions are scheduled for this week, with activity anticipated to rise above 3000 in the following week.
