Spring selling season begins with 2,401 homes heading under the hammer

• Sydney is set to see over 1,000 properties go to auction this weekend, the second time this year the thousand home mark has been reached.
• Last week's final clearance rate dropped to 66.8%.
• Was driven by small increases to withdrawals and properties passed in at auction.

Well over two thousand homes are heading to auction this weekend, with the latest figure representing a 5.4% rise from last week, according to CoreLogic.

This weekend will be the third busiest over the year-to-date, behind the week ending 26 February (2,429) and the week ending 2 April (2,687).

This week last year, 1,823 auctions were held. CoreLogic economist, Kaytlin Ezzy, said last year’s lacklustre start to spring was due to weaker selling conditions, rising interest rates, and falling dwelling values.

Melbourne is set to host the busiest auction market this week, with 1,021 homes to go under the hammer. The first week of spring will be a 4.8% dip in activity, with last week seeing 1,072 homes going to auction.

Sydney will break the thousand auction mark for the second time this year, with 1,010 to head to auction. The latest is a 16.5% increase from last week’s 867, and just below the busiest week so far this year on 2 April (1,017).

Across the smaller capitals, Brisbane (28.1%) and Canberra (23.2%) are expecting week-on-week rises, while Adelaide is expecting a 17.5% decline.

Brisbane is set to host the busiest auction market among the smaller capitals and the city’s busiest week in five weeks with 155 homes currently scheduled for auction. This is followed by Adelaide (104) and Canberra (101), which is expecting its busiest week since early April. Eight homes are set to go under the hammer in Perth, and two auctions are scheduled to occur in Tasmania this week.

Clearance rates lower for the end of August

Last week saw 2,278 homes taken to auction across the capitals, with the final clearance rate dropping to 66.8%.

The dip in the clearance rate was driven by a mild increase in both the withdrawal rate (7.7%) and the portion of properties passed in at auction (25.2%).

While Melbourne hosted the most auctions last week, indeed exceeding 1,000 for the first time since before Easter, the final clearance rate dropped 90 basis points to 64.7%, but remained 5 percentage points higher than this time last year (59.7%).

Sydney also recorded a fall in its final clearance rate across 867 properties, down 1.2 percentage points to 69.1%.

“The previous week’s clearance rate of 70.3% was the city’s highest in nine weeks, while this time last year, 51.7% of Sydney auctions were successful,” noted Ezzy.

Source: CoreLogic.

No auctions were held in Tasmania last week.