Sydney auction and private treaty vendors aren't rushing the 2018 property markets

Sydney auction and private treaty vendors aren't rushing the 2018 property markets
Staff reporterDecember 7, 2020

Where are the early bird 2018 vendors?

Saturday saw 175 or so auction, down on the 215 offerings on the same Saturday last year.

Total new listings around Sydney in the past 28 days are down by around 10 percent on last year, suggesting prospective vendors aren't rushing the market with listings.

Perhaps they've quickly appraised high levels of unsold stock from last year might be a weight on the 2018 market.

CoreLogic calculate unsold Sydney stock from last year at 20,000 plus, up 23 percent on last January, meaning much more choice for buyers than this time last year.

Negative headlines - along with the ensuing confirmatory chat around the backyard summer bbqs - do have the capacity to undermine our collective psyche.

With Easter early this year, I'd expected the listing momentum to be well underway.

January numbers are always low, and often hard to read the market direction, but last week saw just 38 auctions compared to 84 in the prior January 2017 period.

It is possible that the optimistic rush that starts off most auction years may not emerge as much as is traditionally the case.

Maybe discretionary vendors don't think it is quite the right time to test the market, or maybe they wish to list off-market utilising agency buyer databases to test price strength.

The housing market downturn data that emerged late last year, and continued this week, certainly had the potential to un-nerve the Sydney property market. 

But I do love February auction clearance rates.

They are always much stronger than where the prior year left off.

December auctions saw a fatigued 54 per cent clearance rate, according to CoreLogic.

The auction success rate declined through what was the bumper spring selling season and then into early summer.

The mood shifted from crazy to cautious over the year.

Last February there was an 79 percent opening month auction success rate which was up on the December 2016 close of 73 per cent.

Through the years there have been even bigger new year rebounds. 

February 2016 had a 75 per cent success rate as against the 55 percent in December 2015.

There was another huge turnaround coming out of the global financial crisis over summer with the December 2008 success rate being 42 percent but 63 percent in February 2009.

Confident starts after the summer break are or course no guarantee that the entire year remains strong.

When deciding just how to list your home this year, best ask your panel of prospective listing agents not only how they went last year, but contrast their results against the overall suburban trend.

Let's not forget home owners are still substantially wealthier from housing in Sydney, and even with the recent mild declines still slightly up over the past year.

Certainly the days of those double digit annual gains for the Sydney housing market are gone. 

But this is not to say 2018 won't be a healthy market for your offering. 

This article was first published in The Saturday Daily Telegraph.

Editor's Picks