Following last week’s public holiday-induced volume decreases, activity soared over 70 per cent across the country, according to CoreLogic.
The week ending 19 March saw 74.5 per cent more homes go under the hammer this week (2,234) compared to last week’s 1,280, which had been impacted by public holiday festivities in half the nation’s states and territories. Despite this mass increase in activity, auction numbers still remain 28.1 per cent lower than the equivalent week of 2022.
So far, 68.4 per cent of the 1,656 results collected have returned a positive result, 3.4 per higher than last week’s 65 per cent, which revised up to a final clearance rate of 65.4 per cent.
Having hosted 1,000 auctions for the second time this year, Melbourne was the busiest market as 1,043 homes went under the hammer, up significantly from last week’s 360. The 843 results collected to this point have produced a 68.7 per cent success rate, 5.8 percentage points higher than the previous week, which saw a final clearance rate of 62.8 per cent.
The Mornington Peninsula, where 82.4 per cent of the 24 auctions returned a positive result, was Melbourne’s strongest-performing subregion, while the Victorian capital’s west ranked as its poorest-performing region after recording a preliminary clearance rate of 55.2 per cent from 103 auctions.
In Sydney, 788 homes went under the hammer, up from 659 last week. A preliminary clearance rate of 73.5 per cent has been recorded from the 589 results collected to this point, representing a 4.2 per cent increase on last week’s performance.
Across the smaller capitals, Brisbane’s 139 auctions saw it rank as the busiest, followed by Canberra (125) and Adelaide (122). More auctions cleared in Adelaide than any other smaller capital market (63.3 per cent), with Canberra (57.5 per cent) and Brisbane (55.7 per cent) both producing preliminary clearance rates above 50 per cent.
In Perth, nine of 13 collected results have been collected so far, with two of those being successful. Tasmania held four auctions this week, three of which have been collected and returned successful results.
Early indicators from CoreLogic forecast 2,400 auctions next week, with approximately 1,150 of those to be held in Melbourne.