Melbourne auctions push over 1000

Melbourne will host another exceptionally strong Saturday of early spring auctions this weekend as the local market continues to surf on solid buyer and seller confidence.

Over 1000 homes are listed to go under the hammer in the metro area at the weekend.

This is well ahead of the 878 auctioned last weekend and also significantly higher than the 842 auctions conducted over the same Saturday last year.

The city has had an extraordinary start to the spring selling season following a record August of auctions. Over the first two weekends of September, 1883 auctions have been scheduled compared to 1557 over the same period last year – an increase of 326 or 20.9 per cent.

Auctions numbers will continue to rise over the remainder of September with the first spring Super Saturday of auctions due in two weeks on the 26th – the weekend before the Grand Final.

Melbourne’s inner south will again host the highest number of auctions this weekend with 173 followed by the inner city with 157, the west with 155, the inner east 145, the north east 144, the outer east 114, the north 70 and the south east 47.

The most popular suburbs for auctions this Saturday are Reservoir and East Bentleigh, each with 19, followed by Richmond 18, South Yarra 16, North Balwyn 15 and Brighton with 13 auctions scheduled this weekend.

Melbourne’s weekend auction clearance rate tracked backwards last weekend but the local market still remains on track for a solid to strong spring selling season.

A clearance rate of 76 per cent last Saturday was down from the 79 per cent recorded the previous weekend and lower than the 79 per cent rate of the same weekend last year.

Auction prices weakened slightly last weekend with Saturday’s monthly median trend auction price of $797,250 down from the $802,000 recorded the previous Saturday. Melbourne’s latest weekend trend auction price however remains 9.1 per cent higher than the $730,750 recorded over the same Saturday last year.

Latest ABS data reporting near flat GDP growth over the June quarter reinforces rising pessimism over the future direction of the Australian economy and a downward bias for interest rates. The recent sharp fall in the Australian dollar is a positive however for Australia’s export-orientated industries.

Home building activity continues to surge in Melbourne with 2254 houses approved for construction over July – the highest monthly total recorded by the ABS since March 2011.

July was also another strong month for unit approvals in Melbourne with 2748 recorded.

Melbourne’s home building boom continues in full swing with 33,141 approvals reported over the first seven months of this year – an increase of 7158 or 27.5 per cent over the 25,983 homes approved for building over the same period last year.

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group Senior Economist Twitter @DocAndrewWilson