Spring racing carnival triggers short spike in Melbourne auction offerings

The shortage of property listings is the biggest talking point of the 2016 spring selling season in Sydney and Melbourne.

There's many factors at play but a vicious cycle with home owners not wanting to sell while there is little on the market to then buy.

Melbourne finally gets its long awaited surge in auctions next weekend, much to the relief of buyers feeling deprived.

But the traditional pre-Derby Day-Melbourne Cup fillip sees around 1200 offerings, significantly below the record 1479 over the pre-Cup Super-Saturday last year.

Sydney's auction activity will fall away next weekend with just over 600 auctions scheduled, which according to Domain, is down on the 800 last year.

Despite home prices rising, the volumes languish well below previous highs, CoreLogic research recently noted.

CoreLogic estimates 339,000 houses and 132,000 units sold in Australia over the year to April.

The combined 471,000 annual tally was down almost 26 percent from the 633,000 transactions over the 12 months to May 2002, the last sales volume peak year.

CoreLogic research head Tim Lawless foresees the consequences of property owners less willing to list properties for sale.

Any short supply of housing stock is likely causing some urgency amongst buyers which is contributing to the upwards pressure on dwelling values, Lawless suggests.

Strong auction clearance rates continued given the lower weekend volumes with Canberra's near 84 percent narrowing topping the recent market leader, Sydney which had an 83 percent success rate.

"It has been another strong week for auction results, with a preliminary national auction clearance rate of 77.9 percent," CoreLogic's Kevin Brogan advised. The clearance rate has remained above 70 percent since the last week in July. 

There were 2,405 auctions held across the combined capital cities, up on last week's 2,290, but down on the 2,858 capital city auctions held last year.

Auction numbers were down a touch in Canberra where there were 74 auctions and an 83.9 percent success, as opposed to 86 auctions held on the same weekend last year when there was a clearance rate of 68 per cent.

Canberra prices ranged between $445,000 at Flynn and $1.6 million at Narrabundah (below). 

The Canberra top seller last sold for $240,000 in 1998. Luton Properties had offered a $1.2 million plus pre-auction price guidance on the property that had been a $1000 a week rental. 

The nation's top sale was in Toorak where $6.25 million was paid on Albany Road.

There had been a $5.5 million reserve at the Kay & Burton auction which saw four bidders.

Across Melbourne, the preliminary clearance rate was steady at 78 per cent, remaining above the clearance rate for the city one year ago when it was 72 per cent.

Melbourne's outer east region was the strongest at 87 per cent.

Melbourne also had the nation's cheapest result when $265,000 was secured at Thomastown (below).

The two bedroom had last sold at $168,000. The prior top sale in the complex of five was $260,000 in 2014.

Sydney’s preliminary auction clearance rate was 83.3 percent, the 26 consecutive week above 70 percent.

The eastern suburbs of Sydney showed the strongest performance with 97 per cent of the 69 reported results selling.

Adelaide's clearance rate was 68 percent; Brisbane’s clearance rate this week was 52 percent, while Perth’s clearance rate of 50 percent was among the strongest in recent times.