With nearly 3,000 homes set to go under the hammer this Saturday, the coming week will be a test of Australia’s property market demand.
In the latest Property Market Indicator Summary for the week ending 22 October, CoreLogic economist Kaytlin Ezzy forecast a “Super Saturday” event for the coming weekend.
A whopping 2,900 properties are set to go under the hammer on 28 October alone, with further 600 auctions scheduled for the week.
That puts predicted auctions well above the 3,000 mark and would make the final full week of October 2023 the busiest week for auctions in more than 18 months.
Across the nation, the average clearance rate rose to over 70 per cent for the first time in 24 weeks, taking the total clearance rate up 90 basis points from the previous week to 70.8 per cent.
This is a considerable improvement on the auction market this time last year, where only 60.7 per cent of auctions ended with a sale.
Melbourne was home to the most active auction market last week, with 1,107 property auctions held across the city. Despite having lifted over 7 per cent from the previous week, last week’s Melbourne total is still a downturn from the 1,163 auctions held this time last year. With a clearance rate of 62 per cent, vendor success in the Victorian capital was somewhat lukewarm.
In Sydney, 896 homes went under the hammer last week, four more than the week prior. The city was home to a strong preliminary clearance rate of 74.2 per, while a drop in the number of properties passed in at auction also suggested a rise in buyer confidence among Sydneysiders.
The smaller capitals saw a lift of 23.7 per cent in auction activity overall, with Adelaide doing much of the heavy lifting. With 173 auctions and a preliminary clearance rate of 83.8 per cent, Adelaide saw the highest level of vendor success out of all the capital cities.
At 167 auctions and a preliminary clearance rate of just 66.1 per cent, Brisbane was less impressive. Canberra was the only capital city to see a substantial decline in number of auctions, with -17.3 per cent fewer auctions held this week than last week, and a clearance rate of just 53.3 per cent.