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Brendan Wong
A high volume of listings across Sydney and Melbourne presented a challenge to the market, but both capital cities produced strong results.
According to Australian Property Monitors (APM), Sydney recorded another clearance rate above 80 per cent despite hosting the highest number of auctions ever conducted on a Saturday.
The result of 80.4 per cent makes this weekend the 19th out of 21 where clearance rates have exceeded 80 per cent.
The total of 891 properties that went for auction in Sydney on Saturday brought the total number for November to 3,953, the highest monthly number of listings for a capital city ever recorded by APM.
RP Data recorded a slightly lower preliminary result of 74.7 per cent across 1,333 auctions. This was a rise from last week’s results of 74 per cent across 1,060 auctions.
Senior economist at APM Dr Andrew Wilson said: “Stern challenges remain, with a mountain of pre-Christmas auction listings due over the coming weeks.
“The next two weekends will again present near-record levels of auctions in Sydney, with over 1,700 properties scheduled to go under the hammer.
“And on December 21, the final auction Saturday of the year, 113 auctions are listed - just four days before Christmas Day and nearly double the number presented for sale over the same weekend last year.”
Melbourne produced another steady result over the weekend, despite a wave of late year listings.
APM recorded an auction clearance rate of 74.5 per cent, which was the spring selling season average, across a near-record volume of 1,345 auctions.
RP Data recorded a preliminary result of 69.2 per cent, up from 65.1 per cent. The volume of auctions increased from 1,172 to 1,602.
RP Data Victoria housing market specialist Robert Larocca said this was the fourth consecutive week where clearance rates had been below 70 per cent due to record levels of supply.
“A review of the spring market over the past five years shows that this year has featured the highest levels of supply and the second highest clearance rate,” he said.
“Prior to this weekend the spring clearance rate was 71 per cent, higher than every year since 2008 except the 80 per cent recorded in 2009. That year did, however, have much lower levels of supply.
“More important than just the clearance rate or overall volume is the statistic that more homes have been sold at auction then every year since 2008. This underscores the health of the market.”
According to APM, the most expensive property was in Sydney with a value of $3.7 million and the most affordable property was in Melbourne with a value of $247,500.
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