House sellers strike gold in ‘hot’ market as property market builds

A surge in the number of auctions last week did little to lessen the clearance rate of properties sold.

Madeleine Joyce and Stefan Bork with children Terenja, Lucija and Oliver in their inner city Melbourne townhouse that sold at auction. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

A surge in the number of property auctions last week did little to reduce the clearance rate of properties sold, with preliminary figures rising to 78.6 per cent nationally.

Melbourne reported a 56 per cent rise in the number of auctions last week, which helped drag the national number up to 1555.

Preliminary clearance rates in the nation’s two largest cities were almost level. Bidders snapped up 80.3 per cent of properties that were taken to auction in Sydney last week, while in the Victorian capital the clearance rate came in at 79.2 per cent.

clearance Clarence rates across cap cities

CoreLogic auction commentator Kevin Brogan said the strong result was likely to continue as the market picked up in the first few weeks of the year.

Melbourne couple Madeleine Joyce, 44, and Stefan Bork, 48, joined the slew of hopeful vendors looking for a sale last week.

They sold their inner-city Brunswick investment townhouse for just over $1m, which was more than $100,000 above the price guide.

Ms Joyce said the decision to sell came down to taking advantage of the market to better position their family.

“While it (the property) was positively geared, we want to focus on family and you can do that with more capital behind you,” she said. “We were looking at some options and we decided that by selling now we would essentially be mortgage-free (at their family home).”

Nelson Alexander agent Shayne Mooney, who sold the Brunswick property, said the crowd and six active bidders ­decided to turn up despite the rainy weather. “Our network of 17 offices ­recorded a clearance rate of 95 per cent yesterday” Mr Mooney said. “It shows the market is back and extremely strong.”

Strong clearance rates featured through the latter half of last year, coinciding with the turnaround of the market in June. This time last year, the national clearance rate sat at 51.2 per cent from 1450 auctions.

Mr Brogan said he expected the ­remaining auction weekends through February to remain busy. The leap year has created five Saturdays this month for the first time since 1992.

Smaller markets also achieved good results, despite little movement in the number of auctions held. Canberra had the highest number of clearances (90.3 per cent), followed by (Perth (80 per cent), Adelaide (75 per cent) and Brisbane (61.5 per cent).

The largest sale under the hammer on Saturday was a contemporary six-bedroom home in Strathfield, in Sydney’s inner west, which sold for $4.42m. While the price was impressive, the vendors sold for less than the $4.69m purchase price in the rising market of 2016.

Ray White NSW chief auctioneer Alex Pattaro said the market was “red hot”, with the number of ­active and approved buyers ­approaching levels last seen at the peak in 2017.

“With the oversupply of buyers, people should be considering getting their properties on the market and taking full advantage,” Mr Pattaro said.