Auctions stall as millions are plunged into snap lockdowns

Melbourne is poised for the highest number of auctions at 1,055, down from the city’s second busiest auction week this year when 1,418 homes went under the hammer.

“The city of Melbourne has undoubtedly been the most affected in terms of virus outbreaks and lockdowns throughout the pandemic,” said CoreLogic’s research analyst, Jade Harling.

“However, through the current period, a relatively low number of cases is seeing business as usual conditions across the Melbourne auction market.”

Meanwhile, Sydney has 863 scheduled auctions for the weekend, though a large portion of these are expected to be withdrawn following the expansion of the city’s lockdown from just four council regions to all of Greater Sydney last weekend. Just prior to the city-wide lockdown, Sydney saw a much higher 1,084 auctions.

The smaller capital cities continue to anticipate significantly fewer auctions, with Brisbane at 153, Adelaide at 136, Canberra at 63, Perth at 16 and Tasmania at two.

“Brisbane is expected to be the busiest of the smaller cities this week, but with the city currently in a three-day lockdown awaiting further results from contact tracing, it is uncertain if these will proceed over the weekend,” Ms Harling noted.

All capital cities expect to report a decline on the previous week’s numbers.

Last week’s results

Over the week ending 27 June 2021, capital cities saw an improvement in clearance rates as auction volumes rose.

CoreLogic revealed a final auction clearance rate of 75.4 per cent out of 2,960 homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities – increasing from the previous week’s 74.1 per cent out of 2,400 homes.

Canberra was most successful, with the highest final clearance rate of 91.7 per cent resulting from 109 auctions.

Adelaide followed with 77.9 per cent out of 149 auctions, then Sydney with 77.5 per cent out of 1,084 auctions, Melbourne with 74.7 per cent out of 1,418 auctions, Brisbane with 59.5 per cent out of 173 auctions, and Perth with 56 per cent out of 25 auctions.

All capital cities saw higher clearance rates compared with the previous week.