Real estate: Floods fail to wash away auction success

The number of sellers offering their homes on the auction block dipped over the past week but not as a result of the heavy rain down Australia’s east coast.

Sydney auctioneer Ben Hanly brings down the gavel at the auction of 196 Union Street, Erskineville, Sydney on Saturday. Picture: Julian Andrews.

The number of sellers who offered their homes on the auction block dipped over the past week but not as a result of the heavy rain down Australia’s east coast.

CoreLogic’s preliminary auction data found 2945 homes were taken to auction across the combined capital cities in the week to Sunday, down from 3386 over the week prior. The lower volume resulted in a preliminary clearance rate of 72.7 per cent.

Despite the flooding and heavy rain experienced in Brisbane and Sydney, the number of homes taken off the market ahead of auction day was still relatively low. Sydney’s withdrawal rate of 16 per cent of auctions was only four per cent higher than the year to date average, while in Brisbane, 18 per cent of auctions were withdrawn (year to date average of 11 per cent).

CoreLogic’s research director Tim Lawless expressed surprise just how little disruption there was.

“I thought the withdrawal rate might have jumped higher in Brisbane and Sydney, but it seems most of the scheduled auctions have proceeded, although more auctions would have been held ‘in-room’ or online in some areas,” Mr Lawless said.

Almost three in four (74.6 per cent) of the 993 properties auctioned in Sydney found a buyer on a preliminary count, a stronger result than Melbourne where 70.4 per cent of the 1426 homes offered were sold.

Despite Brisbane still being in clean-up mode from last weekend’s deluge, 180 auctions went ahead, of which 69.8 per cent were successful.

Ray White Queensland chief auctioneer Gavin Croft said nine in 10 of his auctions booked for Saturday sold prior.

“Off the back of the flooding, it sent a touch of nerves through some sellers. Quite a number of them chose to sell prior,” Mr Croft said.

“Despite the floods, we are still seeing really high energy and resilience in the Queensland market.”

Of the smaller capitals, Adelaide recorded both the highest number of homes offered (194 properties) and the preliminary clearance rate (82.1 per cent) of the 194 properties. Canberra reported a clearance rate of 75.7 per cent on first count from 140 auctions, while one of the three results collected so far in Perth were successful from a total of 10. There were only two auctions in Tasmania this week and one of them was successful.