Auction activity shows signs of life as the number of capital city homes taken to auction increased to 929 this week from the previous week's final number (536).
Preliminary auction clearance rate, meanwhile, was higher at 54.1% than the final auction clearance rate last week, which was 42.8%. Similar to the past week, though, it is anticipated that the figure will track downwards to around the mid-to-low 40% range by the time remaining results are collected.
Year-over-year, volumes and clearance rates are significantly down compared to the 1,470 capital city homes that went under the hammer and 63.7% of properties that were bought during the same period in 2018.
CoreLogic reported that while clearance rates and activity are still low, the auction data at the start of 2019 are showing a slight rebound in the clearance rate relative to the lows logged through December.
In addition, volumes in individual capital cities climbed over the week across all auction markets except in Adelaide, which recorded a reduced figure.
Melbourne was named the busiest auction market this week, in terms of volumes with 352 auctions held across the city. It posted a preliminary auction clearance rate of 53.7%. — down from last year’s 70.7% of when the city hit 619 auctions.
New South Wales’ capital recorded a total of 321 auctions over the week, with a preliminary auction clearance rate of 59.2%. Sydney was the best-performing capital city auction market based on the final results last week, while this week’s preliminary clearance rate is also the highest amongst the cities.
Canberra had a preliminary clearance rate of 56.3%, while Brisbane’s preliminary result reached 42.6%.
