Market healthy, but not booming: RP Data's weekend auction preview

There are 1,187 auctions scheduled this week in Melbourne compared to 1,172 for the same time last year.

The most auctions are expected in Reservoir with 24 expected followed by 23 in both Bentleigh East and Glen Waverley.

The clearance rate over the past few weeks has provided further confirmation that the market is healthy but not booming.

This is also obvious when the home values are both corrected for inflation and then compared to the previous peaks. At the end of September house values in Melbourne were 3% below their peak in real terms and units 5.4% lower. In many parts of Melbourne buyers have better purchasing power than they did in 2010.

Clearance rates may have dropped but the private sale market continues to tighten.

On a citywide basis, the time on market results for houses sold at private sale was stable at a very low 31 days over the last week and vendor discounting dropped to -4.7%.

Key data:

• Clearance rate week ending 16 November: 68.9%
• Melbourne auctions expected week ending 23 November: 1,187
• Melbourne private sales time on market week ending 16 November: 31 days (houses)
• Melbourne vendor discounting market week ending 16 November: -4.7% (houses)
• Listings being prepared for market are 4.3% higher in month ending 16 November (seasonally adjusted)