Capital city auction activity continued to ease for the third consecutive week, with just 1,418 homes actioned across the combined capitals this week. It was the quietest auction week since the June long weekend, with this week's auction numbers down -8.1% last week (1,543) and -12.9% below the 1,628 homes auctioned this time last year.

The combined capital's preliminary clearance rate rebounded to 74.5% from a nine-week low, with 1,066 results collected so far. Last week’s preliminary clearance rate of 70.3% was revised to 64.9% at final figures. This week last year just 55.1% of capital city auctions were successful.

Melbourne saw a slight increase in auction numbers this week (564), with 14 additional auctions compared to the week prior (550). Melbourne's preliminary clearance rate rose 2.6 percentage points above last week's preliminary rate (70.2%, revised to 63.3% at final numbers), with 72.8% of the 448 results collected so far returning a successful result. Melbourne's preliminary clearance rate has now held above the 70% mark for 13 consecutive weeks. This time last year, 627 homes were taken to auction across the city, and a final clearance rate of 55.7% was reported.

In Sydney, 564 homes went under the hammer across the city, down from 676 last week and 605 this time last year. Sydney's preliminary clearance rate rose 4.4 percentage points, with 75.6% of the 427 results collected to date reporting a successful result. The rise in the preliminary clearance rate was accompanied by a slight increase in the withdrawal rate (13.6%), while the portion of properties passed in at auction (10.8%) fell to its lowest rate since mid-October 2021 (8.0%). A preliminary clearance rate of 71.2% (revised to 67.2% at final figures) was recorded last week, while this time last year, 53.1% were successful. 

Across the smaller capitals, auction activity fell across Adelaide (-8.0%) and Brisbane (-19.8%) but rose in Canberra (2.9%) and Perth, from six auctions last week to 12 this week. Brisbane had 105 auctions, Adelaide had 103 and Canberra, 70.

Adelaide continued to record the strongest preliminary clearance rate among the smaller capitals, with 86.2% of auctions reporting a successful result, up 4.4 percentage points week-on-week and the highest preliminary clearance rates since the last week of February earlier this year. This was followed by Canberra (76.3%), up 15.8 percentage points, and Brisbane, where 69.1% of auctions recorded a successful result. Just two of the six auction results collected so far were successful in Perth. No auctions were held in Tasmania. 

With Victorian school holidays set to end this week, capital city auction volumes are set to see an unseasonal rise of roughly 12% next week.

By Kaytlin Ezzy, Economist, CoreLogic