Weekend auction wrap: Where the hammer fell
Established houses and units priced below $600,000 recorded an 83% auction success rate in Sydney on the weekend. It came just days after the NSW government’s announcement that established homes would lose their entitlement to first home owner stamp duty subsidies from December 31.
There was been a 74% clearance rate for the sub-$600,000 market on the September 3 weekend, according to Australian Property Monitors data.
The cheaper price bracket has recorded a better success rate than the overall Sydney clearance rate for some time, with commentators suggesting the weekend fillip was the first sign of the incentive for first-home buyers to buy over the next 16 weeks.
There was a 60% clearance rate across Sydney on the weekend, according to Australian Property Monitors, up from 51% on the first weekend of the month.
APM senior economist Dr Andrew Wilson says the stamp duty revelations and 10 months of stable interest rate policy as well as the beginning of spring have given Sydney its highest auction clearance rate in two months.
Melbourne’s 55% clearance rate was a mirror image of the 55% on the September 3 weekend, but considerably down on 70% on the same weekend last year.
“Whilst buyers and sellers alike will have welcomed the decision by the Reserve Bank to keep interest rates stable it has not been enough to cause a substantial improvement in the Melbourne auction market,” Real Estate Institute of Victoria CEO Enzo Raimondo notes.
There have been a total of 561 auctions reported, of which 308 sold and 253 were passed in, 164 of those on a vendors bid.
About 1,400 auctions are scheduled in the two weekends before the AFL grand final in Melbourne.
The 83% Sydney clearance rate was derived from sales results with publicly declared prices.
