Coronavirus: confidence grows as hammer rises above virus cloud

Sydney home buyers were fired up when NSW held its first public auction in eight weeks.

Auctioneer James Keenan was back in business at Sydney’s inner-west Camperdown on Saturday. Picture: James Gourley

Sydney home buyers were fired up when NSW held its first public auctions in eight weeks, with agents hoping the strengthening clearance rate will entice sellers to test the market.

Open homes and auctions were back in NSW, the ACT and the Northern Territory on Saturday, with strict social distancing instructions as most other states prepared for a staggered return to normality in the coming weeks.

PDF: clearance rates May 10
The positive step has helped the number of homes sold under the hammer grow to about 64 per cent nationally — the highest preliminary result since late March, according to property researcher CoreLogic — albeit it from a significantly low number of available homes.

Lowering case numbers of COVID-19 and the broader unwinding of social distancing rules will boost consumer confidence, said SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher, and may help coax sellers back.

“We do believe that volumes will start to pick up three weeks from now with the lifting of the ban, but by no means do we anticipate any type of boom,” he said.

The preliminary clearance rate was highest in Sydney (70.8 per cent from 209 auctions) last week, followed by Adelaide (61.9 per cent from 29 auctions) and Canberra (61.8 per cent from 50 auctions). While Melbourne is still online, buyers bought 60.3 per cent of the 160 homes on offer, while half of Brisbane’s almost two dozen properties sold. Both properties on offer in Perth were passed in.

The South Australian, Tasmanian and Queensland governments have announced the removal of real estate bans, with groups capped at a maximum of 10 people from Monday, Friday and Saturday respectively. Open homes of up to 10 people have been allowed in Western Australia for the past two weeks, but auctions have not been given the green light.

Victoria is the only state to continue to enforce the March bans, with only private inspections and online auctions allowed.

CoreLogic’s Kevin Brogan said there were signs buyer confidence had stuck around.

“We are seeing a recent trend towards a higher proportion of homes selling ‘at’ auction, rather than prior to the event, implying vendors are becoming more willing to test the market under auction conditions,” Mr Brogan said.