Preliminary clearance rate improves as volumes rise across the combined capitals

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Jade Harling

8 February 2021

Auction markets have returned a strong result on higher volumes this week, with the combined capitals weighted average preliminary clearance rate holding above 80%.  Every capital city recorded a clearance rate above 70% as volumes continued to surge higher after the festive period slowdown.

Capital City Auction Statistics (Preliminary)
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There were 1,287 homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities this week, returning a preliminary auction clearance rate of 83.8%, an improvement on the 81.1% preliminary result last week when a lower 884 auctions took place.  Last week’s clearance rate revised down to 77.2% by final figures on Wednesday; it’s likely this week’s result may come in above this given the higher preliminary figure. Over the same week last year, auction volumes were lower with 1,167 homes going under the hammer across the combined capital cities, returning a final auction clearance rate of just 67.7%. 

Weekly Clearance Rate, Combined Capital Cities
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In Melbourne, a preliminary auction clearance rate of 80.8% was recorded across 592 auctions this week, while last week there were 390 auctions returning a final clearance rate of 80%. One year ago, the clearance rate was just 68.5% across 419 auctions. 

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There were 449 auctions held in Sydney this week, returning a preliminary clearance rate of 89.1%. In comparison, there were 270 auctions held over the previous week and the final auction clearance rate was 76.7%. One year ago, 384 auctions were held across the city and the clearance rate came in at 77.6%. 


Across the smaller auction markets, Canberra returned the highest preliminary clearance rate of 92.7%, followed by Adelaide (82.8%), Perth (75%) and Brisbane (74.6%).

Such strong auction results signal further upwards pressure on housing prices amidst extremely tight advertised supply levels and above average buyer demand.

Sub-region auction statistics
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