
Auction clearance rates in Australia’s two biggest markets – Sydney and Melbourne – were strong over the weekend, with both markets recording solid increases.
In Australia’s biggest auction market – Melbourne – clearances rose to 74% on 721 auctions reported to the REIV. Moreover, the result should hold given that only 7 auctions are listed as “no result” by the REIV (see below table).

The result is a marked improvement on the 71% provisional clearance rate recorded last weekend on 665 auctions, which was downgraded to a final clearance rate of 69% on 720 auctions after late results were chased-up. The weekend’s result was also well above the 56% clearance rate on 633 auctions recorded on the same weekend of last year and the May 2013 average clearance rate of 70%.
Sydney’s preliminary auction clearance rate was reported as 78% by Australian Property Monitors (APM), which was well above the 73% recorded last weekend. By contrast, RP Data recorded a clearance rate of 80.3% on 623 auctions, wheras Residex recorded a clearance rate of 74% based on a sample of 93% of sales across Sydney metro, which was up from the the 70% clearance rate recorded by Residex last weekend based on 99% of auction sales.