CoreLogic National Auction Preview, week ending 16 April 2017

Upcoming auctions

Given the upcoming Easter long weekend, auction volumes are significantly lower this week with only 426 capital city auctions scheduled; a much lower number than last week when 3,517 were held across the capital city auction markets in the lead up to the long weekend, and lower than this time last year when 1,699 homes were taken to auction.

Sydney is host to the majority of auctions this week, accounting for 60 per cent of capital city auction activity (255 auctions), while in Melbourne 70 homes are set to go under the hammer this week. Outside of Sydney and Melbourne, just over 100 auctions are scheduled to take place across the remaining capital cities.

This week, Sorrento in Melbourne is the busiest individual suburb for auctions, with CoreLogic tracking 8 auctions so far this week. Following Sorrento is the Sydney suburb of Mosman where 7 auctions are currently scheduled.

Summary of Last Week’s results

Last week saw the final auction clearance rate fall slightly to 74.8 per cent, from 75.9 per cent the previous week, however the volume of auctions was significantly higher in the lead up to Easter with 3,517 homes taken to auction last week, the busiest week so far this year, compared to 2,657 the previous week. Over the same week last year, auction volumes were lower with 1,699 auctions held and a clearance rate of 67.4 per cent.

Melbourne’s clearance rate last week was 79.3 per cent, the strongest result of any capital city, down slightly from 79.6 per cent the previous week, followed by Sydney, where 77.7 per cent of auctions were successful, down slightly from 78.0 per cent. Melbourne was host to 1,488 auctions last week, up from 1,143 the previous week and 889 at the same time last year, while Sydney held 1,436 auctions, the most auctions held across the city since the week leading up to Easter 2015.

Across the smaller auction markets, auction volumes increased when compared to both the previous week and this time last year, however looking at clearance rates, Canberra (68.3 per cent) and Tasmania (52.6 per cent) were the only cities to see a rise in the clearance rate over the week.

The Gold Coast region was the busiest non-capital city region last week, with 75 auctions; however Geelong recorded the strongest clearance rate at 81.7 per cent.