Clearance rate slip no indicator of softening demand: RP Data's Melbourne weekend auction analysis

A clearance rate of 69.9% from 981 auction results so far this week. This week’s clearance rate is broadly in line with year to date of 70%, but below last weeks 74%.

This is the first week below 70% in a few months but the variance is not unusual and is not a sign of softening demand at this stage as other weeks have seen 3 to 4 point changes in the clearance rate.

In the private sale market the time on market for houses contracted moderately over the last week from 39 to 38 days whilst the vendor discount rose from – 6.0 to -6.4%. Only Sydney, with 27 days and Canberra with 33 days are recording a lower average time on market for houses. Conditions in the unit market were stable with a time of market of 45 days and average vendor discount of 5.0% having improved from -5.4% over the previous week.

New listing activity dropped from a monthly rise of 7.1% to 6.0% this week.