Strong start to autumn with biggest auction week of 2025
Economists highlight positive numbers as the property market moves into March and the peak of the autumn selling season.
AUSTRALIA has just had its busiest auction week of the year, with 2,773 homes going under the hammer.
The figure marks a slight increase from last week’s 2,751 auctions and sits 4% higher than the same period last year, according to CoreLogic.
Research director Tim Lawless said that while it was a record-breaking week there was a small drop in clearance rates.
“We’ve just moved through the biggest week of auctions so far this year, with CoreLogic Australia reporting 2,773 homes going under the hammer, slightly higher on last week and 4% above levels over the same week last year,” Lawless said.
The preliminary clearance rate across the combined capital cities fell just below 70%, coming in at 69.9%, after holding above the 70% mark for the past two weeks.
Sydney and Melbourne continued to lead the market, both recording preliminary clearance rates above 70%, although Lawless noted that “the success rate was down slightly on the prior couple of weeks.”
In Sydney, 71.4% of the 981 auctions held reported a successful result. However, this was a drop from the previous week’s preliminary figure of 74.4%, which was later revised down to 65.3%.
Melbourne saw 1,376 auctions, with a 70.3% success rate in early results. That’s down from last week’s 72.1%, which was later revised to 64.5%.
Auction activity in smaller markets returned mixed results. Brisbane recorded the lowest preliminary clearance rate at 55% across 185 auctions, while Adelaide continued its strong performance with a 77.9% success rate from 140 auctions. Canberra saw 77 homes go under the hammer, with 71.1% of them returning a positive result.
Looking ahead, auction volumes are expected to dip significantly next week, as public holidays in Victoria—including Labour Day—lead to a slowdown.
“Next week, auction numbers are set to dip to around 1,580 due to a long weekend in Victoria,” Lawless said.
Economist Dr Andrew Wilson’s key takeaways were that the March auction market has started strong, with positive clearance rates in most capitals, despite an increase in listings.
“The national weekend auction market saw a clearance rate of 62.6% last week,” he said.
“Early-year auction markets show strong results from rising listings, with buyer and seller confidence boosted by the recent RBA interest rate cut, suggesting potential price growth.”
