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Brendan Wong
Christmas may be just a few weeks away but the auction market shows no signs of slowing down as sellers continue to rush into the market before the year’s end.
Senior economist at Australian Property Monitors (APM) Dr Andrew Wilson said Sydney would break its record for auction listings, with 902 properties set to go under the hammer.
“The deluge of listings is set to continue over the remaining weekends until Christmas, when the market will take a well-earned break. Thousands of properties are still scheduled to be auctioned up until the weekend of December 21,” he said.
Dr Wilson said the test for the market was whether the seemingly endless supply of homebuyers would be satisfied with the wave of properties going up for auction, and whether clearance rates would hold up as sellers compete for buyers.
“Last weekend, Sydney recorded its lowest weekend clearance rate in a month, which at 80.1 per cent was below the spring average of 83 per cent," Dr Wilson said.
“Although this was still a strong result, it may nonetheless just signal the first sign of a market starting to pull back from the extraordinary spring market activity levels recorded so far.”
Melbourne is scheduled for another super Saturday of auctions, with APM reporting 1,340 properties scheduled to go under the hammer.
“High listings numbers will present another significant test for a market that is showing early signs of weakening after a solid and consistent performance over the spring selling season to date,” Dr Wilson said.
“High listings numbers have been a characteristic of this spring’s auction market in Melbourne, with an extraordinary average of just under 1,000 properties going under the hammer each weekend over the past two months.”
Melbourne has had 4,418 homes listed for auction over November, the highest ever total recorded since May 2010 when there were 4,124 properties.
High volumes of properties are set to come into the market in the three weeks until Christmas.
According to Sydney auctioneer services My Auctioneer, vendors and homebuyers are facing so much choice this weekend that some could end up missing out.
“There’s no doubt the market is the hottest we’ve seen it in years,” said auctioneer Will Hampson.
“However, there are some vendors that will miss the boat if they think they’ll get a better price in January. Weekly media reports of record prices can prompt some vendors to overvalue their property and in turn, buyers can be spooked if reserve prices are too high.”
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