Bill Granger secures top sale in Tamarama

The expatriate celebrity chef Bill Granger scored the highest sale price at weekend auctions with the bullish $6.4 million sale of his three storey oceanfront home at Tamarama, in Sydney's coastal eastern suburbs.

It was sold through Goodyer Real Estate having last traded at $4.805 million in early 2015, reflecting 20 percent annualised price growth. 

The London-based Granger, who has Bills cafes now in Japan, Hawaii, Seoul and London, was holidaying in Cairns, so did not attend the damp Saturday auction which sold to a young couple of Asian background.

The increasing strength of both the Sydney and Melbourne auctions markets meant consecutive strongest year-to-date national success rates at weekend auctions.

With even lower interest rates assisting robust auction markets, the capital city preliminary clearance rate rose from 72 percent to around 75 percent in preliminary CoreLogic results from 1600 auction offerings.

Compared to the same week one year ago, auction activity is almost 1,000 listings down, CoreLogic spokesperson Kevin Brogan said, adding not all markets were seeing better success rates.

"Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane saw a rise in auction clearance rates, while across the remaining cities; week-on-week results show a fall in clearance rate," he said.

Melbourne's weekly clearance rate was up to 76 percent from 75 percent, but lower than last year’s 78 percent.

Melbourne's 722 residential property offerings were lower compared with last year's 1,085.

All Melbourne regions recorded a clearance rate above 70 percent, with the exclusion of inner east, at 69 percent. 

Sydney secured its second weekend with 80 percent of reported results sold at auction, the 15th consecutive clearance rate above 70 percent for the city.

The 526 offerings compared to last week's 509 volume, but significantly lower than one year ago, when 1,103 Sydney homes went to auction.

The Eastern Suburbs (94.6 percent), City and Inner South (94.3 percent) and Northern Beaches (91.7 percent) were the strongest performing sub-regions by clearance rate.

At around 74 percent, Canberra was the strongest capital city outside the two auction engine rooms followed Adelaide's 67 percent, then Brisbane’s preliminary results showing a clearance rate of 59 percent, which is the cities strongest clearance rate for the year to date.

Although set to rise gradually over coming weekends, auction volumes will likely remain well below last year’s boom-time record numbers, according to Domain economist Dr Andrew Wilson, who anticipates listings will be similar to the 2014 and 2013 pre-spring markets.