While the cooling market has delivered yet another weak preliminary auction clearance rate for Melbourne at 49.8 per cent despite 1,706 homes taken to auction in a 'Super Saturday bumper', The Block auctions have defied the general market, according to buyer's agent Greville Pabst from PropertyDuo.

"If you look at the general market which is sitting at just under 50 per cent clearance rate, the expectation from many was that two or three would have passed in. I think that just shows the strength of these properties," Mr Pabst told WILLIAMS MEDIA.

Mr Pabst, who has been part of The Block's Buyer's Jury for the past eight seasons, bought four of the five apartments for his clients.

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One of Mr Pabst's clients was Aconex co-founder Robert Phillpot, who snapped up both penthouses at the rejuvenated Gatwick Hotel in St Kilda in Melbourne, a buy he considers "a bargain".

The tech entrepreneur bought both the three-bedroom penthouses – units 4 and 5 at 34 Fitzroy Street – for $5.85 million through Mr Pabst.

"I think we both expected those two penthouses to exceed premium dollars, so my client was very happy. It was an absolute bargain," Mr Pabst told WILLIAMS MEDIA.

Last year Mr Pabst purchased Josh and Elyse's home on behalf of comedian Dave Hughes.

Mr Pabst says this season of The Block demonstrates that good property will always sell well.

"Where the Gatwick Hotel is located in St Kilda is I believe an undervalued area and my clients understood that and made very good property decisions. There isn't going to be another Gatwick, so it's also that scarcity factor that drives property value."

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Melbourne

Melbourne was host to 1,706 auctions this week making it the second busiest week for the city all year.

Preliminary results show a clearance rate of 49.8 per cent, up from last week when just 45.7 per cent of auctions were successful, which was the lowest clearance rate the city had seen since June 2012 (38.6 per cent across 127 auction results).

Over the same week last year, the auction clearance rate was significantly higher with 70.2 per cent of the 1,983 auctions returning a successful result. 

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Pictured: 96 Union Street, Brunswick. Sold at auction through Peter Jones and Duncan McPherson of Nelson Alexander. Seen on Luxury List.

REIV CEO Gil King told WILLIAMS MEDIA it was "the largest auction weekend since March".

"Malvern East led for volume with 12 auction sales, followed by Bentleigh East, Mill Park, and Reservoir with 11 sales in each," Mr King said.

"Carnegie was the top performing suburb with a 90 per cent clearance rate from 10 auctions – more than half of the sales were apartments.”

Brisbane

Across the smaller auction markets, preliminary results show an improvement in clearance rates across all cities except Brisbane while Perth was the only city to see auction volumes fall over the week.

Listing agent Joanna Gianniotis of Place Bulimba says the Hamptons style Camp Hill home was a "textbook auction".

"It was a really great auction with plenty of active bidding. We had about 60 people turn up on the day, the registered buyers were all ready to pounce," she told WILLIAMS MEDIA.

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"The open houses for this property attracted about 80 people, over a three-week campaign.

"Camp Hill is running at its own pace at the moment, it's performing much better than what the media are making it out to be. It's an area that has lots of attention from mums and dads, young families, lots of investors as well. With all the upcoming infrastructure, people are buying into the suburb now to cash in on the capital gains," Ms Gianniotis said.

Auctioneer Justin Nickerson says the steady clearance rates Queensland has seen took a hit over the weekend.

"The steady clearance rate in South East Queensland took a hit this week as increased volume of auctions correlated to a slide in the number of bidders per auction. Sold prior to auction rates were still up on the normal rate, leaving the sold on the day clearance well down. As the volume of auctions increases across the next month, it will be interesting to see if this continues to result in a downward slide in the overall clearance rate," he told WILLIAMS MEDIA.

Sydney

There were 796 auctions held in Sydney this week, up from 675 last week, although substantially lower than this week last year when 1,215 homes were taken to auction across the city.

Preliminary results show that 50.7 per cent of auctions were successful this week, up from 44.6 per cent last week.

"The final auction clearance rate has been sitting below 50 per cent for 4 consecutive weeks now, and it is likely to be the case again this week as final results are collected," REINSW President Leanne Pilkington told WILLIAMS MEDIA.

"Negative consumer sentiment is having a big impact on property prices and turnover right now, with those without a compelling need to buy sitting out of the market. The impact is felt differently in different parts of Sydney but well priced, well-located properties are still selling!"

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Ray White Group chairman Brian White says there are “tentative signs of stabilisation in Sydney”.

“Everyone wants to know where the market is going and we are seeing the first steps that the downturn in Melbourne and even Sydney is slowing,” Mr White told WILLIAMS MEDIA.

“We have great confidence that the market adjustment is coming to an end. Our strong auction results and high numbers of onlookers show us that there are buyers out looking. Everyone wants to buy at the bottom of any market, so attending auctions will give you the best real-time price auction."

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