Auction success rate slips into the 50s ahead of onsite auction shutdown
The last week of unimpeded onsite auctions saw the final clearance rate fall to the lowest level since June last year.
Vendors secured a 56.9 percent success rate across the capital cities, according to CoreLogic.
The week’s final clearance rate was lower than the week prior when 65.3 percent of the 2,274 auctions held returned a successful result.
Last week saw auction volumes across the combined capital cities reached their second highest level this year with 2,599 homes taken to market.
Melbourne was the busiest city in terms of auction activity with 1,343 homes taken to auction last week, returning a final clearance rate of 58.4 percent.
Over the previous week, 1,201 auctions were held and the clearance rate was recorded at 65.6 percent.
This time last year, 814 homes were taken to auction across the city when 55.1 percent were successful.
There were 946 homes taken to auction in Sydney last week returning a clearance rate of 58.8 percent, while over the previous week, 767 homes were taken to auction and a higher clearance rate of 68.1 percent was recorded. This time last year 506 auctions were held returning a 52.1 percent success rate.
Across the smaller auction markets, Canberra was the best performing auction market last week in terms of the clearance rate with 63.2 percent of homes auctioned reporting a sold result.
There were 3,065 capital city properties scheduled to go under the hammer this week, however the release of new policy on Tuesday has quickly changed how the real estate industry will operate, with on-site auctions and open homes now being added to the list of social restrictions.
This week was expected to be the busiest week for auctions for 2020.
However, given usual auction methods are temporarily banned, agents may be looking to move to online solutions, CoreLogic noted, or accept bids over the phone, with the aim to carry on with a‘business as usual’ approach.
There is also likely to be a number of vendors who withdraw their property from the market completely or postpone until circumstances improve.
Across each of the individual auction markets, scheduled volumes are higher week-on-week in Melbourne (9%), Sydney (28.2%), Brisbane (52.2%), Adelaide (44.3%) and Canberra (2.5%), while Perth and Tasmania have fewer scheduled auctions over the week.