Auction clearance rates have plummeted by 21 percentage points to 63.4 per cent nationwide since the peak in early October, as the surge in listings swamped the dwindling number of buyers, preliminary results from CoreLogic show.

The clearance rate in Sydney has slumped by 21.6 percentage points to 60.8 per cent and was down by 24.7 percentage points to 62.3 per cent in Melbourne.