Auction markets close busiest February week

Australia’s auction markets clocked their best results for a February week over the weekend.

CoreLogic’s latest auction report showed an auction volume of 3,384 across capital cities over the weekend, making it the busiest February week since records began in 2008.

Among the homes that went to auction, 2,526 were detached houses while the remaining 858 were units.

Last weekend’s volume was higher than the activity during preceding weekend (2,898 homes) and over the same period last year (2,473 homes).

Due to the higher number of homes up for grabs, the preliminary clearance rate eased slightly to 74.3%, from previous weekend’s 74.6% and last year’s 79.3%.

Melbourne hosted 1,561 auctions over the weekend, the highest activity among all capital cities.

The Victorian capital managed to beat its auction record over the previous weekend and during the same period last year in terms of volume.

However, it followed the general easing trend in clearance rate.

In Sydney, 1,209 homes went under the hammer. During the same period last year, only 844 homes were taken into auction in the city.

Despite the higher volume, Sydney reported a higher week-on-week preliminary clearance rate at 76.9%, up from 75.6%.

On an annual basis, however, Sydney’s clearance rate pales in comparison to last year’s 85.3%.

In terms of success rates, Adelaide was the best-performing city — 85% of the 208 homes auctions over the weekend were sold successfully.

Adelaide was also the busiest market among the smaller cities.

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