Sydney October auction strength easing says APM, but RP Data proffers otherwise
The Sydney home auction market has eased under the weight of over 700 properties going under the hammer this weekend.
There was a preliminary 78.9% weekend clearance rate, according to Australian Property Monitors.
The prior weekend's revised clearance rate dipped to 77%.
The underlying trend has weakened over the past month although remaining strong.
It was definitely still a sellers’ market, according to APM's senior economist Dr Andrew Wilson in the lead up to the super Saturday.
After Saturday's result Dr Wilson the weekend recorded the lowest clearance rate for three months.
"The 78.9 percent result - although still strong, was nonetheless the second time in three weekends the clearance rate has fallen below the boom-time benchmark of 80 percent.
"The underlying trend of the past month however continues to weaken with the four-weekend average clearance rate now standing at 80.6 percent compared to 82.9 percent over the previous four-weekend period.
"Record high auction listings may be a factor however in recently falling clearance rates as supply catches up with buyer demand.
"Sellers are clearly energised by high clearance rates, low interest rates, Australia’s best performing local economy and unsurprisingly still strong prices growth," Dr Wilson said.
This weekend the Sydney home auction market had 750 homes scheduled to go under the hammer. About 150 results remain to be tallied.
It was higher than last weekend’s 704 and up on the 691 auctioned over the same weekend last year.
Sales totalling $456 million were secured by agents. Saturday's 750 offerings was the highest total recorded since May and Property Observer gleans October will break the record for auction listings in Sydney for that month following record monthly performances over September and August.
The inner west hosted the most number of auctions this weekend with 134 followed by the city and east with 111.
The most popular suburbs for auctions were Paddington and St Ives on the upper north shore each with 11 auctions listed.
Of the six Paddington results, there were just the three sales.
Four of the six St Ives results were sales.
Sydney’s inner west regained its usual mantle as the leading region following last weekend’s unusually low result with a strong 85.4% clearance rate – and from the highest volume of activity with 88 sales from 103 reported results. The south followed with 84.5 percent with next the lower north at 81.8 percent, the north west and the northern beaches each with 81.3 percent, the west 77.8 percent and the south west 76.2 percent.