There are currently 1,987 capital city auctions scheduled to take place this week, up 22.2% from last week’s 1,626. This time last year, in the middle of Australia’s second COVID wave, only 648 auctions were held across the capital cities.
Auctions this week
Melbourne is expected to host the most auctions this week, beating out Sydney, with 779 auctions scheduled, up from 352 auctions the previous week. It is likely these numbers will revise lower over the week, following the trend previously observed throughout lockdown periods. This time last year, just 55 auctions were held across the city.
There are currently 778 auctions scheduled to take place across Sydney this week, down 6.2% from last week’s 829 actions. This small decline is likely the result of the Labour Day long weekend rather than a reversal in Sydney’s recently observed upward trend in volumes. This time last year 430 auctions were held across Sydney.
Across the smaller capital cities, Brisbane is set to host the highest number of auctions this week with 170 auctions scheduled. This is followed by Adelaide and Canberra with 133 and 112 auctions currently scheduled respectively. Perth is expected to host 13 auctions this week, while Tasmania has 2 auctions scheduled. With the recent outbreak of COVID cases across the greater Brisbane area, it is expected that Brisbane’s scheduled auctions may revise as the threat of another snap lockdown looms.
Summary of last week's results
Last week, a final clearance rate of 80.6% was recorded across the combined capital cities, the highest clearance rate since late March. This is up both from the previous week’s clearance rate (75.1%) and the clearance rate from this time last year (64.2%). Last week saw the lowest reschedule rate since late June (3.2%) with 1,626 of the 1,680 scheduled actions taking place. The previous week saw 1,672 homes taken to auction, while this time last year 1,082 auctions were held.
Capital city auction statistics (Final)- w/e 26 September 2021
Last week only 352 homes were taken to auction across Melbourne, which was the lowest auction volume since early April. Of the 338 results collected, 75.7% were successful, continuing the upward trend in the clearance rate seen since the end of August. The previous week saw 58.5% of the 431 auctions held result in a sale while this time last year just 45.0% of the 40 auctions held were successful. Melbourne’s withdrawal rate fell to 17.2% this week, down from 35.9% last week. With the continued easing of restrictions and the return of one-on-one inspections, the trend towards higher clearance rates and lower withdrawal rates are expected to continue.
Weekly clearance rate, combined capital cities
Sydney held 829 auctions last week, compared to 786 auctions the week prior and 812 this time last year. Sydney’s clearance rate sat in the 80% range for the fifth consecutive week with a final clearance rate of 81.7% recorded last week. The previous week saw a clearance rate of 80.5% while this time last year 65.4% of auctions were successful.
Across the smaller capital cities, Canberra beat out Adelaide last week, with a final clearance rate of 88.1%. This marks the first time Canberra has taken the top spot since entering lockdown in mid-August. Adelaide had a final clearance rate of 87.5%, followed by Brisbane (77.6%) and Perth (54.5%).