Hot Melbourne market pauses for Easter break

The Melbourne home auction market will pause this weekend for the Easter holiday break and reflect on what has been a strong and strengthening first half to the autumn selling season.

Just 19 homes are scheduled to go under the hammer on Saturday which will be predictably well below last weekend’s 1245 listings and similar to the 26 auctioned over the Easter weekend last year.

Auction numbers in Melbourne have surged this year so far with sellers keen to take advantage of strong market conditions.  9179 auctions have been listed since February which is 1312 more of 16.7 per cent higher than the 7867 auctioned over the same period last year.

Melbourne’s south east will be the most popular regions for auctions on Saturday with 6 followed by the outer east 5, the inner city 3, the north 2, the north east, the inner south and the inner east each with one auction and the west with no auctions listed this weekend.

The booming Melbourne home auction market rolled on last weekend recording another strong clearance rate despite school holiday distractions.

Last weekend’s rate of 81.4 per cent was higher than the previous weekends 80.5 per cent and also higher than the 76.3 per cent recorded over the same weekend last year. The result was the second highest recorded by the local market so far this year and the third consecutive increase in the clearance rate with the marker clearly strengthening over the past month.

Melbourne’s suburban regions again recorded remarkably consistent results again last weekend which has been a clear feature of the early autumn market.  Only one region failed to record an 80 per cent plus clearance rate on Saturday.

Melbourne has recorded an average weekend clearance rate of 79.8 percent since February which is well ahead of the 75.6 percent recorded over the same period last year. The local market will now turn towards the usually quieter winter season full of confidence for more strong performances to close out autumn.

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group Chief Economist Twitter@DocAndrewWilson join on LinkedIn and Facebook at MyHousingMarket.