Spring selling season above 2,000 for fourth week
Signs of a softening housing market as more property comes up for auction, and advertised stock on the market for longer.
AUCTION numbers continue to bubble above the 2,000 mark through the spring selling season.
But there are signs of a softening market as more property comes up for auction, and advertised stock remains unsold for longer periods.
“Auction markets moved through a fourth consecutive week where more than 2,000 homes went under the hammer,” CoreLogic’s latest Property Market Summary showed.
While the 2,065 properties that were auctioned off in the week ending September 8 was a fall from the 2,315 auctions held the week before, there was an uptick in the clearance rate over the weekend.
But the data specialist noted that there was a broader “rise in advertised stock levels and evidence of some momentum leaving the growth trend”.
Commenting on the 73,665 properties on the market through August – up from 65,863 in July – SQM founder Louis Christopher said the Spring selling season was looking like a buyer’s market.
“The housing markets in Sydney and Melbourne continue to slow, driven by some caution from home buyers and uncertainty by home sellers who have become a little more negotiable in recent weeks,” he said.
“Going forward, the Spring selling season will provide a significant level of choice for buyers, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne with listings at their highest levels in some years.”
Melbourne led the monthly growth in listings, with a 25.4% increase in new listings, followed closely by Sydney, which had a 24.7% rise.
Sydney’s new listings were the highest recorded since November 2021 – the highest levels for a month of August ever recorded by SQM Research.
Canberra also experienced significant growth, with a 16.6% increase, while Perth and Adelaide recorded increases of 10.9% and 9.5%, respectively.
Brisbane recorded modest 2.4% rise in new listings.
Hobart and Darwin experienced declines, with Hobart down by 3.7% and Darwin by a significant 21.3%.
Proptrack Senior Economist Eleanor Creagh said: “National home prices have cycled through 20 consecutive months of growth, although the pace of growth has slowed in the seasonally quieter period,”
“Although the number of homes hitting the market this year has lifted, strong population growth, tight rental markets and home equity gains are bolstering demand.”
