Preliminary clearance rate holds above 70% over Easter

It was a busy Easter for auctions this year, with 895 homes going under the hammer, only slightly down from the record high 926 auctions held over the week of Easter 2022, which was only a few weeks out from the commencement of the rate hiking cycle. The week of Easter last year saw a much lower 652 homes taken to auction.

The preliminary auction clearance rate held above the 70% mark, coming in at 71.1% across the combined capitals, but down 1.2 percentage points from the previous week’s preliminary clearance rate (72.3% which revised down to 65.8% on the final results). In fact, this was the lowest preliminary clearance rate so far this year, excluding January results which can be volatile due to low auction volume.

Melbourne was the main drag on the softer success rate, with a preliminary clearance rate of 63.0%, the lowest early clearance rate since the week ending November 5th last year (fresh after the RBA’s Melbourne Cup Day rate hike). Sydney bucked the softer trend, with a preliminary clearance rate of 77.8%, up from 75.9% over the previous week and the highest preliminary result since the week ending February 18.

The smaller capitals all recorded a softening in the preliminary clearance rate relative to the week prior. Adelaide’s clearance rate came in at 78.8%, followed by Brisbane (67.1%) and Canberra (61.5%). Just one of the three auctions reported in Perth so far was successful, while there were no auctions in Tasmania last week. Brisbane recorded the busiest auction week, with 98 homes taken to auction, followed by Adelaide (59) and Canberra (45).

The volume of auctions is set to bounce higher this week with just over 2,000 homes currently scheduled for auction.

All data to week ending  31 March 2024

Source: CoreLogic