Corelogic has released its June quarter auction market report, which reported a sharp fall in clearance rates and volumes owing to the COVID-19 lockdowns:
Auction volumes were down over the June quarter which is not surprising given the uncertainties around COVID-19 and tightened restrictions banning on-site auctions which came into effect at midnight on March 25. The latest quarterly results were largely impacted by these social distancing measures which saw a high proportion of pre-scheduled auctions withdrawn from the market over the first half of the quarter.
The June 2020 quarter saw 13,783 auctions held, down 27 per cent when compared to the March quarter (18,902), and 24 per cent lower than this quarter last year (18,104). Of the 11,956 auction results collected over the latest quarter, 31 per cent reported a withdrawn result, which was significantly higher than the 6.1 per cent withdrawn over the March quarter. The first six weeks of the quarter saw withdrawal rates as high as 56 per cent as vendors looked to alternative methods of sale or chose to postpone until conditions improved. By mid-May withdrawal rates started to normalise.
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Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
