Auction activity in capital cities down

Oksana Patron

4 July 2023

The combined capitals preliminary clearance rate reached the lowest in nine weeks and stood at 1,530 auctions, slightly above 70%, according to CoreLogic’s data for the week ending 2 July.

By comparison, the previous week saw 1,791 homes auctioned, while this time last year, 1,881 capital city auctions were held.

Across Sydney there were 696 auctions held, which represented a drop of -3.9% less than the 724 held last week and -7.9% lower than the 756 auctioned this week last year.

According to CoreLogic, the reduction in the preliminary clearance rate in Sydney was driven by an increase in the portion of properties passed in at auction, from 9.7% last week to 13.2% this week, combined with an increase in the withdrawal rate from 11.9% to 15.6% this week.

Melbourne hosted 517 auctions this week, a significant -30.5% less than the 744 held last week, with 439 auction results collected so far, Melbourne’s preliminary clearance rate remained just above 70% as it has done for the past 12 weeks, at 70.2%.

As far as smaller capital cities were concerned, Brisbane was the busiest auction market this week (132), followed by Adelaide (111) and Canberra (68).

Also, Adelaide has recorded the strongest preliminary clearance rate across the smaller capitals, with 81.8% of auctions reporting a successful result, followed by Brisbane (64.3%) and Canberra (60.5%).

In Perth, none of the three results so far were successful, while there were no auctions held in Tasmania last week.

CoreLogic also said it expected a further reduction in auction activity across capital cities next week by around – 5.2%, continuing the usual seasonal winter decline in auction activity.