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Auction action heats up as autumn arrives
With summer’s closing fortnight bringing the highest number of homes to Melbourne’s auction market for 2020, we’re certainly looking to autumn with anticipation. How is the market readying itself for this new season? Our experts explore.
Auction season amping up
Summer’s penultimate weekend caused quite a stir across Melbourne city, the spike in temperature translating directly to Melbourne’s auction market. Data from the REIV displayed a preliminary auction clearance rate of 79.6% in Victoria’s capital, with 1,215 homes presented to auction over the weekend. This eclipses the previous week which saw 743 auctions return a final clearance rate of 76%. Looking specifically at clearance rate data, on this same weekend last year the clearance rate was just 50.6% across 1,128 auctions. This significant surge in both auction volume and clearance rate data points to a positive sales environment for the Melbourne metropolitan area.
Buyer confidence
In terms of how these figures are filtering through to purchase behaviour, Domain senior research analyst Nicola Powell shared that while the sheer volume of auctions proved a test of the 2020 auction market, on the back of much higher volumes, strong clearance rates really show the confidence and buyer demand in Sydney and Melbourne. Dr Powell expects clearance rates to continue on an upward trend throughout March, but slow as Easter approaches in mid-April (Domain).
According to our experts, it was first-home buyer and investor purchasers that made up a majority of raised hands as hammers fell. Experts also observed a particular wave of momentum and competition in bidding once a property had been presented to market and declared selling.
Widening the scope
Similar enthusiasm was observed across the nation’s capitals, with a combined total of 2,446 homes presented to auction, returning a preliminary auction clearance rate of 77.7%. Over the same week last year, auction volumes were lower with 2,293 homes going under the hammer across the combined capital cities, returning a final auction clearance rate of just 49.4% (REIV).
Are you prepped and ready to meet this auction action as we enter autumn? If you’re looking to bid with purpose or introduce your property to market this season, reach out to our experts.