Historically auction activity starts to taper off after the second week of December as market activity slows in the lead up to Christmas. This expected drop in activity was delayed this year with 4,783 auctions held across the capital cities last week – the second busiest auction week since CoreLogic records commenced in 2008. This week 597 capital city homes are expected to go under the hammer.
Auctions this week
Just under half of the scheduled activity for this week is set to occur in Melbourne with 289 homes scheduled for auction, down from 2,161 auctions held last week. Across Sydney 164 homes are set to go under the hammer after hosting 1,634 auctions last week and 1,791 the week prior.
Across the smaller capital cities, both Adelaide and Brisbane are scheduled to host 48 auctions each, while 38 auctions are expected to occur across Canberra. 10 homes are scheduled to go under the hammer this week in Perth, while no auctions are scheduled across Tasmania.
Note: this is the final auction report for 2021, we recommence our reporting of the auction market in late January/early February 2022 (pending volumes).
Summary of last week's results
Historically we would see auction activity start to taper off in the lead up to Christmas, with volumes falling dramatically after the second week of December. However, last week defied this convention with 4,783 auctions held across the combined capitals. Beaten out only by the 4,981 auctions held the week prior, last week overtook the week ending 28th November as the second busiest since CoreLogic records commenced in 2008. Continuing the downward trend seen since early October, the capital cities clearance rate fell this week with 61.1% of auctions held returning a successful result. The week prior recorded a clearance rate of 64.0%, while this time last year 69.8% of the 2,331 auctions held were successful.
Capital city auction statistics (Final)- w/e 19 December 2021
Last week, 2,161 auctions were held across Melbourne, down from the record high 2,318 that occurred the week prior. Last week was the second busiest auction week on record and marked only the 3rd time that Melbourne’s auction volumes exceeded 2,000. The Melbourne clearance rate fell further last week, with 60.0% of the auctions held recording a successful result. The week prior recorded a clearance rate of 63.3%, while this time last year 69.4% of the 1,182 auctions held were successful.
Weekly clearance rate, combined capital cities
Across Sydney, 1,634 homes were taken to auction last week, making it the second busiest week on record, behind the week prior. Compared to the previous week, volumes were down 8.8% (1,791) but were more than double the volumes recorded this time last year (764). With auction activity remaining high despite the approaching holiday season, Sydney’s clearance rate fell to 57.0% last week – it’s lowest since early June 2020 (56.8%). The week prior recorded a clearance rate of 60.8% while this time last year 72.0% of auctions held were successful.
Across the smaller auction markets, Adelaide (344), Brisbane (354) and Canberra (255) all outperformed the week prior, becoming the busiest week on record. Canberra recorded the highest clearance rate at 73.7%, followed by Adelaide (73.5%) and Brisbane (67.3%). In Perth, 17 of the 32 auctions held were successful (53.1%), while Tasmania hosted three auctions last week, and none of these recorded successful results.
This year has been a record-breaker for auctions, recording the busiest capital city auction year on record (with 116,711 auctions held in the year to date), the highest capital city clearance rate on record (83.2% week ending 3rd October 2021) and the four busiest auction weeks since records commenced in 2008 (weeks ending 28th November to week ending 19th December). With auction activity remaining strong through December, it will be interesting to see if this volume is matched in 2022 following the unusual seasonal slowdown.
Sub-region auction results (Final)- w/e 19 December 2021
Meet Kaytlin Ezzy
Economist
As an economist, Kaytlin is a key member within CoreLogic’s research team. Highly efficient and flexible, she specialises in collating large and customised data sets, data visualisation and residential data reports.
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