With all eyes on housing auctions as the country looks to gauge the impact of the resurgence of COVID-19 within Australia and the tightening of social distancing restrictions in Victoria, examining the year on year figures helps provide broader context to this week’s results.
While there was a decrease of more than 100 in terms of homes scheduled for auction across the combined capital cities, down to 1,167 from 1,269 the week before, the figure remained higher than this time last year when there were only 896 auctions scheduled.
Of the 938 results which have been reported so far, 59.2% were successful – up from last week’s final clearance rate of 56.2%, but lower than this time last year when the final result rested at 65.4%.
In Sydney, 512 homes were scheduled for auction this week, down from 566 the previous week but significantly higher than the 303 homes taken to auction one year ago.
The preliminary clearance rate came in at 68.9%, although the figure will revise lower as the remaining results are collected. In comparison, the previous week reported a final clearance rate of 61.8%, while a clearance rate of 72.8% was recorded this time last year.
Despite the reintroduction of more stringent social distancing measures, there were more auctions scheduled in Melbourne this weekend (499) than the comparable weekend the year before (410).
However, the impact of COVID was more so evidenced in the withdrawal rate.
Preliminary results show that of the 413 results collected so far, 47.5% were successful, while a significant 43.6% were reported as withdrawn – as compared with just 15.1% of Sydney auctions.
The week before saw a final clearance rate of 51.2%, while this time last year 67.5% of Melbourne auctions reported a successful result.
With restrictions in place across Melbourne for another four weeks, CoreLogic has predicted more auctions will continue to be withdrawn from the market than normal, which will drag the clearance rate lower for a prolonged period.
Across the smaller capitals this week, Canberra recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 90.6%, followed by Adelaide at 64.3%, Brisbane at 59.1% and Perth at 40.0%.
