Auction rates halve as Australia gets set for long weekend

The combined capitals hosted the quietest auction week since mid-June (1,033), with just 1,215 capital city homes auctioned last week. Long weekends across five of the eight states and territories saw auction activity fall by more than half (-54.1%) compared to the week prior (2,648) when the capitals hosted the busiest week since before Easter (2,687). This week last year saw 1,618 homes auctioned, with the public holidays for the AFL grand final and King’s birthday (QLD) falling the week prior.

Of the 963 results collected so far, 70.3% were successful. The previous week's preliminary clearance rate was 1.7 percentage points higher (72.0%), revising down to 66.1% at final figures, while this time last year, 59.7% of reported auctions were successful.

Sydney was the busiest auction market, with 730 homes auctioned last week. This is down -28.2% from the 1,017 held the week prior, when the city hosted its busiest auction week of the year to date (tied with the week ending 2nd April). Driven by a 4.7 percentage point rise in the withdrawal rate (14.6%), Sydney's preliminary clearance rate fell to its lowest point in eight weeks at 71.7%. With 594 results collected so far, last week's preliminary clearance rate was -2.7 percentage points lower than the previous week's preliminary result (74.4%), which revised to 70.0% at final numbers. This time last year, 484 homes were taken to auction across the city, and a clearance rate of 56.2% was reported.

There were 203 auctions held across Melbourne last week, down from 1,092 over the previous week and 833 this time last year. Falling well below the 70% mark, Melbourne recorded the lowest preliminary clearance rate since mid-April (57.6%), with 66.0% of the 159 results collected so far returning a successful result. At 70.5%, the previous week's preliminary clearance rate was 4.5 percentage points higher, while this time last year, a final clearance rate of 62.1% was recorded.

Capital City auction activity is set to rebound this week, with approximately 2,600 homes currently scheduled for auction.

All data to week ending 1 October 2023

Source: CoreLogic