This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE spring selling season has ended with a whimper, as the capital cities saw the weekend’s combined preliminary auction clearance rate fall to 63.4% – on par with the first week of November as the lowest early clearance rate of the year so far.
The soft result occurred against a sizeable number of auctions, with listings increasing across the market through 2024 at a rate not quite matched by buyers, who are facing high mortgage rates and soaring prices which have driven housing affordability to its worst level on record.
On the weekend, 2,680 capital city homes went under the hammer, 40 more than the previous week and the eighth-highest volume of auctions held through the year to-date.
Melbourne saw 1,193 auctions, slightly up from the previous week, but still only the ninth highest volume of weekly auctions held in 2024 so far. The successful auctions rate of 64.1% is the third lowest result of the spring selling season, and lower than the previous week’s preliminary auction clearance rate, which came in at 65.2% and was revised down to 56.4%.
Sydney hosted 1,029 auctions, the sixth-highest weekly volume so far this year and the fifth-highest through the spring selling season. So far, 65.1% of auctions have been reported as successful, the fourth lowest preliminary clearance rate so far this year. This was also down from 68.4% a week earlier, which was revised lower to 59.0% on final numbers. That marked the fifth consecutive final result under 60%.
Across the smaller capitals, Brisbane hosted 175 auctions, well down on the seasonal peak in auction across the city the week before when 235 homes went to auction. Just 52.9% of Brisbane auctions have been reported as successful so far, the third lowest preliminary auction clearance rate this year to-date.
In Adelaide, 171 homes went to auction, the fourth highest volume of auctions held so far in 2024. Some 66.3% of auctions being successful is on par with the previous week as Adelaide’s lowest preliminary clearance rate through the year to-date.
The ACT has seen 54.3% of 95 homes selling based on the early results. Only 16 homes were auctioned in Perth with half reporting a successful result. There was just one home auctioned in Tasmania and the result is yet to be collected.
CoreLogic is estimating there will be around 2,490 auctions to be held this week across the capitals as the selling season starts to wind down. The peak volume for spring occurred appeared to occur relatively early this year, with the volume of auctions peaking at 3,135 over the last week of October.
The national upswing in home values is “all but over”, according to CoreLogic, with Australia seeing its weakest price growth result since the beginning of last year amid a rebalancing of supply and less buying activity.
