With $865 million in sales, Super Saturday residential auction success as results hold steady in Sydney and Melbourne

Weekend auction clearance rates held steady in Sydney and Melbourne despite its super Saturday status with $865 million in residential sales.

Sydney recorded yet another high clearance rate with a 70.5% success rate, based on the initial Saturday results.

"The Sydney Super Saturday produced a strong 70.5% clearance rate despite high listing numbers," Dr Andrew Wilson, from Australian Property Monitors said.

Australian Property Monitors (APM) reported $300 million in sales from 485 auction results.

They had expected around 682 auctions to be held, so some 200 further results need to be added before any final tally.

It was the sixth consecutive week with the Saturday night provisional tally standing at around 70% or higher.

However on most of those week's, the additionally collected results from late filing agents, took the final figure below, so that in the last weekend results, for March 16, was actually 68.7% rather than the initially reported remarkably good 75%.

The expensive apartment sold in Sydney over the weekend was a three-bedroom apartment at The Residence in Darlinghurst, overlooking Hyde Park, which sold for $4.55 million.

Melbourne's clearance rate was 68% this weekend compared to 68% last weekend. There were $565 million in sales.

"Today's result demonstrates the underlying strength of the market currently as the outcome is consistent with this year's trend and the volume of auctions is higher than seen since mid December 2010," Enzo Raimondo, the REIV chief executive said.

There were 1047 auctions reported to the REIV today, with 712 selling and 335 being passed in, 215 of those on a vendor bid.

Moyvane, a $5.1 million Kew property was the weekend's top sale.

The REIV are expecting 1160 results to be the full tally.