Combined capital cities preliminary clearance rate holds above 70%  

Across the 1,900 capital city auctions held last week, the preliminary clearance rate came in at 72.9%, 1.5 percentage points lower than the previous week’s early result (74.4%) which revised down to 66.2% once finalised. The volume of auctions was roughly in line with the previous week, but 9.4% higher than the same week a year ago when 1,739 homes were taken to auction.

849 auctions were held in Melbourne last week, down from 906 a week earlier. At 69.8%, last week was the first time Melbourne’s preliminary clearance rate dipped below the 70% mark since the final week of March (63.0%). Finalised clearance rates through the first three weeks of April ranged from 62.6% to 65.7% with an average downwards revision from the preliminary rate of -7.6 percentage points.

Sydney recorded the second highest volume of auctions last week, with 657 homes taken under the hammer, up from 602 the week prior. The preliminary clearance rate jumped to 78.3%, up from 73.8% the previous week and was the strongest early result since the first week of April (81.6%). Compared to Melbourne, Sydney has seen a larger revision between the preliminary and final results, averaging a -9 percentage point difference over the past four weeks.

Despite falling from the mid-80% range over the prior two weeks, Adelaide continued to lead the smaller auction markets, returning a preliminary clearance rate of 76.4%. This was followed by Brisbane, with 71.7% of the results collected so far retuning a positive result, and Canberra, with a preliminary clearance rate of 63.3%.

The volume of auctions scheduled for this week is set to rise, with around 2,200 auctions currently scheduled.

All data to week ending 28 April 2024

Source: CoreLogic