Auction wrap: Sydney, Brisbane sales hit

While clearance rates are holding up, Covid clampdowns resulted in a number of homes withdrawn from the market.

Auctioneer Paul Wright with Ray White Real Estate Agent Luis Garza, during a Virtual Auction at the Ray White office in Oatlands, in Sydney’s west on Saturday. Picture: Tim Hunter.

The number of homes sold at auctions nationally held above the 70 per cent mark in the face of subdued activity with two key markets Sydney and Brisbane hit with Covid-linked lockdowns.

At the same there were signs of recovery in Melbourne as the city emerges out of its lockdown earlier last month. As a result the auction market is returning to ‘business as usual’ in terms of volume.

Melbourne made up nearly half of the nation’s auction volumes, with 1,067 homes taken to market and a preliminary clearance rate of 75.9 per cent, according to figures released by property tracker CoreLogic. This was higher than the 74.7 per cent final clearance rate recorded last week.

Nationally there were 2,177 homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities this week, down on the 2,960 auctions taken to market in the previous week, the CoreLogic figures showed. Of the results collected so far, some 73.6 per cent were successful, down on last week’s final clearance rate of 75.4 per cent.

Sydney – which is half way through a two week Covid lockdown – had 11 per cent of the planned 863 auctions rescheduled. The city’s property industry shifted to virtual auction sales for this weekend.

Of the 672 results collected across the city so far, a preliminary auction clearance rate of 71.6 per cent, CoreLogic figures said. Of the 481 sold results 61.1 per cent reportedly sold prior to the scheduled auction date. Meanwhile some 23 per cent of the properties were withdrawn from the market.

The latest figures in Sydney compare to last week where the city saw 1,084 auctions take place with a final auction clearance rate of 77.5 per cent.

Brisbane was also set to be the busiest of the smaller auction markets this last week with 153 auctions scheduled to take place, however as the city entered into a 4 day lockdown ending Saturday night, 13 per cent of the original sales were rescheduled to a later date, CoreLogic said.

Brisbane returned a preliminary clearance rate of 64.4 per cent.

Elsewhere Canberra returned the highest preliminary clearance rate of all our auction markets with 86.8 per cent of homes sold at auction this week.

Adelaide recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 73.7 per cent while Perth’s clearance rate came in at 28.6 per cent across just 15 auctions.

The latest figures come as home loan growth in May surged 4.9 per cent on month and 95.4 per cent on year to a new high of $32.6bn. That was driven by a 116 per cent rise in investor loans to a six-year high of $9.1bn.

CoreLogic’s median house price at this weekend’s auctions:

Sydney $1.468m

Melbourne $1.050m

Brisbane $938,000

Canberra $872,000

Adelaide $778,000

Perth N/A

Hobart N/A

CoreLogic’s median unit price at this weekend’s auctions:

Sydney $1.030m

Melbourne $670,000

Canberra N/A

Brisbane N/A

Adelaide N/A

Perth N/A

Hobart N/A