Last weekend, CoreLogic released its preliminary auction clearance rates, which revealed the following results:
Today, CoreLogic has released its final auction results, which reported a 5.4% decline in the final national auction clearance rate to 74.2% – well above the same weekend last year (54.6%) and also above last week’s 73.0%:
As you can see, Sydney’s final auction clearance rate was 6.6% lower, whereas Melbourne’s was 2.7% lower. However, both were nearing 80% and were way above last year’s 53.2% (Sydney) and 56.5% (Melbourne).
The chart below shows the strong bounce in auction clearance rates nationally:
Commenting on the results, CoreLogic noted:
Last week, 1,415 homes were taken to auction across the combined capital cities returning a final auction clearance rate of 74.2 per cent, the highest clearance rate recorded since April 2017 and the second week in a row where the final clearance rate has held above 70.0 per cent. Over the previous week, 1,228 auctions were held and a clearance rate of 73.0 per cent was recorded, while one year ago, 1,915 homes were taken to auction returning a clearance rate of 54.6 per cent.
Melbourne saw 662 homes taken to auction last week, up from 588 over the previous week. The final clearance rate for Melbourne was recorded at 77.0 per cent last week, increasing from 76.2 per cent over the previous week. Melbourne has seen the final clearance rate hold above 70 per cent for 6 of the last 7 weeks now, while one year ago a clearance rate of just 56.5 per cent was recorded, although auction volumes were higher (899).
In Sydney, 503 homes went to auction across the city last week returning a final clearance rate of 78.1 per cent, the highest clearance rate the city has seen since
February 2017 although at that time a significantly higher volume of homes were taken to auction. In comparison, 446 homes were taken to auction over the previous week and the clearance rate came in at 76.2 per cent. This time last year 721 auctions were held in Sydney while the clearance rate was a lower 53.2 per cent.
The below charts plot the massive increase in final clearances in Sydney and Melbourne against dwelling value growth:
While the strong bounce suggests that prices should rebound strongly, this is tempered by the sharp fall in auction volumes, which are running around half boom time levels:
Thus, the auction boom is not as strong as it appears and should temper the price rebound.
