Capital city auction activity almost doubled this week following the quieter long weekend last week. It is the highest number of auctions in 11 weeks, with 1,951 homes scheduled. This activity is -22.8% below the 2,528 auctions held in the same week of 2022.

Of the 1,483 results collected so far, 72.5% returned a successful result, 10 basis points higher than last week's preliminary clearance rate of 72.4%, which revised down to 68.2% at final figures. It’s been seven weeks straight that combined capital city preliminary clearance rates have been 70% or higher. This time last year, 55.2% of auctions held were successful.

Melbourne was the busiest auction market this week with 863 homes auctioned across the city, though this was -31.8% lower on the equivalent week of 2022, when 1,266 homes were auctioned. Melbourne had a preliminary clearance rate of 72.9%, based on 705 results collected. This was the lowest preliminary clearance in eight weeks, down 80 basis points from the previous week's preliminary rate of 73.7% (revised to 68.7% at final numbers). Over the equivalent week last year, a final clearance rate of 55.7% was reported.

Sydney saw 772 homes auctioned across the city this week, the highest number in 11 weeks which may have been impacted by last week’s public holiday. This level of activity was -2.9% less than the 795 held in the same week last year. Sydney’s preliminary clearance rate of 74.5% is the lowest in seven weeks and -1.4 percentage points below last week’s preliminary clearance rate of 75.9% (revised to 72.2% at final numbers). The percentage of properties captured as ‘passed in’ from the 581 results collected so far is 14.1%. This is up 6.1 percentage points from the 8.0% reported in the preliminary result last week. This time last year, just 52.7% of homes auctioned across the city were successful.

Brisbane had 138 homes go to auction, Adelaide had 109, and Canberra had 52. In the equivalent week of 2022 the combined smaller capitals held 47.8% more auctions (467). Canberra recorded the highest preliminary clearance rate with 70.3% of results collected to date returning a successful result. Adelaide saw its preliminary clearance rate fall -15.8 percentage points this week to 67.9%, and Brisbane's preliminary clearance rate (66.0%) increased 7.2 percentage points week on week. Across Perth, three of the six results collected to date were successful, while two of the four results collected in Tasmania this week were successful. 

There are approximately 1,800 auctions currently scheduled across the capital cities this week, a 10% decline from this week.

By Duane Kaak, Research Analyst, CoreLogic.