Melbourne auction market holding up ahead of spring Super Saturday

Melbourne’s weekend home auction market recorded another solid result for sellers on Saturday ahead of next weekend’s bumper spring Super Saturday.

Melbourne’s 78.7 per cent result was higher than the 77.6 per cent recorded the previous weekend and significantly ahead of the 66.3 per cent reported over the same weekend last year.

Late spring auction numbers have increased sharply since the Melbourne Cup holiday weekend, with the usual rush to market by sellers who want to get in before the year ends. Higher listings have contributed to a slight easing in clearance rates in recent weeks, but results remain firmly in favour of sellers in what remains strong local market conditions.

About 1060 auctions were scheduled last weekend, which was just below the 1107 auctioned the previous weekend and considerably lower again than the 1235 listed over the same weekend last year.

Next weekend will present the local market with its biggest test of the spring selling season, with nearly 1400 homes set to go under the hammer. 

Melbourne’s western suburbs continue to record boom-time results, with a leading regional clearance rate of 86.2 per cent and the highest sales at 119. The next highest was the inner south with 81.7 per cent, closely followed by the outer east and the south-east each with 81.1 per cent, then the north with 79.7 per cent, the north-east with 76.5 per cent, the inner east with 75 per cent and the inner city with a clearance rate of 73.7 per cent.

Notable sales reported at the weekend included:

• a five-bedroom home at 18 Soudan Street, Malvern, sold for $4.24 million by Marshall White;
• a four-bedroom home at 4 Nola Court, Toorak, sold for $4 million by Rodney Morley;
• a five-bedroom home at 23 Flowerdale Road, Glen Iris, sold by Marshall White for $3.86 million;
• a three-bedroom home at 1/15-17 Bent Street, Brighton, sold for $3.6 million by Hocking Stuart;
• a four-bedroom home at 17 Irilbarra Road, Canterbury, sold by Jellis Craig for $3.4 million.

The most expensive property reported sold at auction was a five-bedroom home at 10 Charlotte Place, St Kilda, which sold for $4.4 million by Marshall White. The most affordable property reported sold at the weekend was a four-bedroom home at 14 Hornbuckle Crescent, Melton, which sold for $262,000 by Ray White.

For a list of Melbourne auction results click here.

Melbourne recorded a median auction price of $860,000 on Saturday, which was higher than the $802,500 reported the previous weekend and 11.7 per cent higher than the $770,000 recorded over the same weekend last year. A total of $519.8 million was reported sold at auction in Melbourne at the weekend.

Melbourne’s robust housing market is being fuelled by increasing activity by residential investors. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data reports the value of investor finance approved over September in Victoria increased by 2.9 per cent over the month to $3.27 billion.

The September result was 17.4 per cent higher than that recorded over September last year, but the total for the first nine months of this year remains 8.9 per cent lower than that recorded over the same period last year.

The value of residential investor lending accounted for 47.6 per cent of all lending for housing purchases over September in Victoria and was the highest market share recorded since July last year.

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group chief economist Twitter@DocAndrewWilson join on LinkedIn