Sydney and Melbourne Auction Clearances Lift

Australian auction clearance rates continued to improve last week, with Sydney’s auction clearance rate hitting a seven month high and Melbourne’s market also bouncing back.

Sydney’s auction clearance rates have increased again this week, with preliminary results showing a 61 per cent clearance rate, up from 54 per cent last week.

The harbour city was home to 521 auctions, a jump from last week’s 322 auctions held.

In good news for property sentiment, Melbourne’s auction clearance rates also picked up.

Preliminary results show a clearance rate of 54.2 per cent across 657 auctions, a jump from last week’s solid bounce back figures of 52.4 per cent across 350 auctions in Melbourne.

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But while clearance rates are improving, it's been widely expected that dwelling values led by the nation’s two largest cities are yet to finish the downward trajectory.

Preliminary results show Australia’s combined capitals this week had a clearance rate of 55.2 per cent, although as usual this will revise over the week as remaining results are collected.

“Last week’s final clearance rate came in at 51.1 cent across the combined capitals, the first time we have seen the final clearance rate hold above 50 per cent since September 2018, however, keep in mind that volumes are still relatively low,” Corelogic said.

According to the group, 1,444 auctions took place across the capital cities, up from 929 in the week prior.

Comparison: A 12-month perspective

Over the same week last year, Melbourne’s auction clearance rate was significantly higher with 69.8 per cent of the 932 auctions returning a successful result.

In Sydney this time last year, 737 homes were taken to auction which returned a clearance rate of 67.8 per cent.

Across the smaller auction markets, Brisbane and Tasmania were the only places to see auction volumes fall week-on-week.