The national auction clearance rate remains locked in orbit, driven again by super strong demand in Sydney and Melbourne.
The preliminary national clearance rate was 79.0%, up marginally from the weekend before Easter (77.4%), with clearance rates running at their strongest level in six years in trend terms, from RP Data:
Sydney’s clearance rate rose 0.2% to 84.8%, whereas Melbourne’s fell by 0.8% to 77.7%. Clearances in Brisbane, which typically only has a small number of auctions, rose to 50.9% from 45.6% in the weekend before Easter. However, overall auction volumes (1,568) were down sharply on the 3,476 auctions recorded in the weekend before Easter.
As shown in the next chart, Melbourne has experienced the biggest pick-up in auction clearances over the past year, with the clearance rate up 13.3% over the past year:
Sydney, too, has experienced explosive growth off a higher base, with the clearance rate up 10.0% over the past year, and recording nine weeks in a row of clearances above 80%:
The Real Estate Institute of Victoria reported a preliminary clearance rate of 78% on 555 reported auctions, which was down slightly from the 78% clearance rate on 1,336 auctions reported in the weekend prior to Easter.
For Sydney, Domain (formerly APM) reported a preliminary clearance rate of 87% on 417 reported auctions, which was also down slightly on the 88% clearance rate on 836 auctions reported in the weekend before Easter.
