Auction volumes rise but could be curtailed by Melbourne lockdown extension

Amid an extended lockdown, Melbourne continued to claim top spot, accounting for more than half of all scheduled auctions, with 1,131 homes set for sale, up over 70 per cent on last week’s 662.

However, CoreLogic does expect the seven-day lockdown extension to ultimately cause a downward revision.

Sydney, meanwhile, has 596 homes set for auction this week, up slightly on last week’s 564.

Across the smaller auction markets, Brisbane is expected to be the busiest, with 166 homes poised to go under the hammer, followed by Adelaide with 136, Canberra with 93 and Perth with 17.

Last week’s results

Both the auction clearance rates and volumes fell across the combined capital cities over the week ending 8 August, according to CoreLogic.

Of the 1,606 homes taken to auction, only 74 per cent returned a successful result – down from the previous week when 1,761 auctions achieved a 77.2 per cent final clearance rate.

Canberra was once again the most successful capital city auction market, with the highest final clearance rate of 88.9 per cent resulting from 110 auctions.

Despite being in lockdown, Sydney took the second spot, with a 77.6 per cent clearance rate across 564 auctions – the lowest weekly number of auctions over the current lockdown period to date.

Adelaide followed closely with 76.9 per cent out of 91 auctions, Brisbane with 71.2 per cent out of 157 auctions, Melbourne with 69.1 per cent out of 662 auctions, and Perth with 61.9 per cent out of 22 auctions.

Of the capital cities, only Canberra, Sydney and Perth saw their clearance rates increase week-on-week.