Modest clearance rate improvement as Hawks captain Graham Arthur's Balwyn North home sells post-auction

Graham Arthur, the footballer who captained Hawthorn to its first premiership in 1961, knocked back $980,000 when his Balwyn North property went to weekend auction.

But it sold straight after for $1.1 million.

Graham Arthur's four-bedroom house is at 41 Helston Street (pictured above).

The house, which is in the Balwyn High School zone, was offered through Fletchers agents Jason Salan and Daniel Rasile.

They had initially hoped for more than $1.2 million for the elevated brick house which had an updated kitchen and bathroom.

It last traded in 1987 for $146,000.

Domain Group APM reported Melbourne's weekend clearance rate sat at an initial 70.1%.

The Melbourne result was a modest improvement on the previous two weekends when rates fell below 70% on consecutive weekends for the first time since July 2013.

The 1,456 homes listed for auction was close to the all-time Saturday record of 1,558 set on the pre-Melbourne Cup holiday weekend of 25 October this year.

"Melbourne has now hosted over 1,000 auctions each Saturday over the past four weekends for the first time in its history with buyers increasingly spoiled for choice," said Wilson.

"And next weekend the market will end the year with a bang with another big day of auctions with over 1,300 homes set to go under the hammer.

Melbourne’s four-weekend average clearance rate remains below 70% and at 69.1% is well down on the previous four weekend average result of 75.9%.

Melbourne’s north east suburban region reported the best result at the weekend with an auction clearance rate of 76.7%. The outer east was the next highest at 74% followed by the inner south 72.2% with the highest sales at 135, the inner city 70.3%, the inner east 69.9%, the west 66.1%, the north 65.8% and the south east with a clearance rate of 60.0%.