Auctioning your house? The best day of the week to sell in your capital city

If you live in Sydney or Melbourne, don’t even consider putting your home up for auction on a Friday.

But if you’re a vendor in Brisbane, Canberra or Adelaide, take note that most buyers read from the same song sheet: ‘I don’t like Mondays.’

The worst days to take your home to auction, as well as the best days, have now been revealed in new research by the Domain Group in a national study of auction sales for the 12 months to the end of February 2020.

The research looked at clearance rates in each capital city in Australia and drilled down in the data to uncover what type of property sells most often, as well as when and where, in each capital city.

And they show some startling differences in the way property buyers in different cities behave.

For instance, Saturday has proved to be the best day for house auction sales in Sydney and Canberra, and for unit sales in Melbourne, while Adelaide house sellers should always hold their auction on a Friday, and Perth ones on a Tuesday. At the same time, Fridays have the lowest clearance rates in Sydney and Melbourne.

“It can be difficult to work out why these differences exist,” says Domain senior research analyst Dr Nicola Powell. “Some of it must come down to individuals’ psychology.

“There will be fewer auctions, of course, on Fridays but we think the clearance rate is so much lower on those days, when the next day it’s much higher, because people might be hanging out for Saturdays. They feel they’ll have so much more choice just the next day, so they’re very reluctant to commit on a Friday.”

Saturday is the best day for a sale in Sydney with a 67.4 per cent clearance rate (compared to the worst day, Friday, with a 17.3 per cent success rate). Your chance of success is highest selling a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house in the inner west.

In Melbourne you’ve got the best chance of selling a two-bedroom, one-bathroom unit with two carparks in the inner east with a clearance rate of 66.1 per cent (with Friday the worst at 11.5 per cent).

In Brisbane, the best day to sell is on a Saturday, taking to auction a two-bedroom, one-bathroom and one-carpark house on the north side, with a clearance rate of 35.1 per cent (versus black Mondays at 9.4 per cent).

Saturdays are also best in Canberra’s inner north for a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house at 61.4 per cent (against Mondays at 6.3 per cent), a three-bedroom, two-bathroom North Hobart house at 48.4 per cent (there weren’t enough sales to work out a worst day), and in Darwin, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in the suburbs, where the clearance rate was at 49.2 per cent (versus Thursdays at 15.8 per cent).

Only Adelaide with its best day on a Friday at 55.2 per cent, and its worst day on Monday at 13.6 per cent, bucks the trend, along with Perth, whose highest clearance rate is on a Tuesday at 22.9 per cent and lowest on a Monday at 4.9 per cent.

In Melbourne, with its flood of super Saturdays, RT Edgar director Jeremy Fox says that buyers just aren’t in the right frame of mind on a Friday for an auction. “People are keen on a Saturday and you’ll always get a crowd but Friday isn’t a good day at all,” he says.

“If the auction is during the day, they’ll have trouble getting out of work at the end of the week. And while we’ll sometimes hold twilight auctions on a Wednesday, you’d never do that on a Friday. That’s when most people after work are ready to switch off and go for a drink or dinner with family and friends.”

In Sydney, Damien Cooley of Cooley Auctioneers says that similarly the greatest number of auctions always take place on a Saturday, so Friday doesn’t receive the same amount of attention.

“There aren’t that many auctions on a Friday, but if the property is attractive enough, it will sell whatever the day of the week. I sold mine on a Friday with a 7pm auction with 10 registered bidders and a good price to prove the point.”

In Adelaide, ironically, Friday has proved the very best day for an auction, although the proportion of sales at auctions are considerably lower in that city. That’s because Fridays have become auction day almost by default, says Michael Love of Ray White Flagstaff Hill.

“It’s purely a time management thing,” he says. “Agents hold auctions in Adelaide on a Friday because it then frees them up to fit in all their opens on a Saturday. And they’ve found that if buyers really want a property, then they’ll be there, no matter what day it is.”

Perth is the other odd one out, with Tuesday as its peak auction clearance day. Michelle Kerr, the licensee of the Duet Property Group, believes that’s because most people hit a bit of a slump in their working week that day.

“In the 24 hours from lunchtime on Monday to lunchtime on Tuesday, that’s when we have the highest number of eyes on real estate sites,” she says.

“I think it’s just about people’s mental state on Tuesdays after the shock of Mondays being back at work, and getting into the rhythm of meetings later in the week. Tuesday is traditionally the day – along with Friday – when people achieve the least at work, so going to an auction is a good idea.”

But after most of the nation’s auction activity on Saturdays, it’s little wonder that Monday is then Perth’s worst auction day, along with Adelaide, Canberra and Brisbane. Rainy days and Mondays are just best avoided, believes Denis Najzar of Place Estate Agents Woolloongabba.

“I just think that’s a result of how Monday feels,” he says. “You’ve looked at property on a Saturday and on Monday you’re going back to work and you really don’t feel like buying a house. It’s the beginning of the week and you’ve got other things on your mind.”