Quietest week for auctions since the June long weekend
Capital city auction activity continued its downward trend for the third consecutive week, with a total of 1,418 homes going under the hammer across the combined capitals, according to new data from CoreLogic.
This marks the quietest week for auctions since the June long weekend, with numbers down by 8.1% compared to last week's volumes of 1,543 homes and a significant 12.9% decrease from the 1,628 homes auctioned during the same period last year.
Despite the decline in auction numbers, the preliminary clearance rate for the combined capitals saw a rebound, reaching 74.5% based on 1,066 results collected as of Monday, CoreLogic reported. This represents a 4.2-percentage-point increase from last week's preliminary rate of 70.3% (revised to 64.9% at final figures) and a 19.4-percentage-point rise compared to the final rate recorded during the corresponding week last year, which stood at a mere 55.1%.
Melbourne and Sydney
Melbourne experienced a slight uptick in auction numbers, hosting 564 auctions this week compared to 550 last week. The city's preliminary clearance rate also saw a modest increase of 2.6 percentage points from the previous week, reaching 72.8% based on 448 results collected, according to CoreLogic. Melbourne has now maintained a preliminary clearance rate above the 70% mark for 13 consecutive weeks. In contrast, during the same period last year, 627 homes were taken to auction in Melbourne, and the final clearance rate stood at 55.7%.
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In Sydney, 564 homes were auctioned, down from 676 the previous week and 605 during the corresponding week last year, CoreLogic reported. The preliminary clearance rate in Sydney rose by 4.4 percentage points, with 75.6% of the 427 results collected so far reporting a successful outcome. The increase in the clearance rate was accompanied by a slight rise in the withdrawal rate (13.6%), while the portion of properties passed in at auction (10.8%) fell to its lowest rate since mid-October 2021 (8.0%). Last week, a preliminary clearance rate of 71.2% (revised to 67.2% at final figures) was recorded in Sydney, and during the same period last year, the clearance rate stood at 53.1%.
Smaller capitals
Among the smaller capitals, auction activity declined in Adelaide (-8%) and Brisbane (-19.8%), but saw an increase in Canberra (2.9%) and Perth, where the number of auctions rose from six to 12. Brisbane hosted the highest number of auctions among the smaller capitals this week (105), followed by Adelaide (103) and Canberra (70), according to CoreLogic.
Adelaide recorded the highest preliminary clearance rate among the smaller capitals at 86.2%, marking a 4.4-percentage-point increase from the previous week and the highest preliminary rate since the last week of February. Canberra followed with a clearance rate of 76.3%, reflecting a significant increase of 15.8 percentage points, while Brisbane recorded a 69.1% clearance rate. Only two out of the six auction results collected in Perth were successful, CoreLogic reported. No auctions took place in Tasmania this week.
As Victorian school holidays are set to conclude this week, an unseasonal rise of approximately 12% in capital city auction volumes is expected for the following week.
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