Melbourne market steams into autumn

The Melbourne home auction market will steam into autumn this weekend clearly strengthening with already strong clearances rates continuing to rise despite record number of listings testing the market.

Melbourne will host just over 1150 auctions to start the official autumn selling season this Saturday which will be significantly lower than last weekend’s record February Super Saturday 1395 listings and similar to 1156 auctioned over the same weekend last year.

The west suburban region has the most number of auctions listed on Saturday with 201 closely followed again by the inner south 200, the inner city 182, the north east 140, the inner east 133, the outer east 114, the north 104 and the south east with 55 auctions listed on the weekend.

The most popular suburb for auctions this weekend in Melbourne is St Kilda with 20 followed by Reservoir with 219 and East Malvern, Camberwell, South Yarra, Cheltenham and Richmond with 15 auctions each on Saturday.

The Melbourne home auction market produced a stunning result last weekend recording a boom-time clearance rate despite hosting the highest number of February auctions on record.

Melbourne recorded a remarkable clearance rate of 82.4 per cent last Saturday which was higher than the 79.0 per cent recorded the previous weekend and well ahead of the 75.3 per cent recorded over the same weekend last year.

Saturdays result was the highest since October 22 last year and third highest recorded over the past 12 months.

All of Melbourne’s suburban regions recorded strong clearance rates last weekend with the early-season market now in full swing and regional results resembling the consistency and narrow range of outcomes typical for most of last year. And again similar to last year, lower priced outer-suburban regions continue to record the highest results.

The south east recorded the highest clearance rate last Saturday with 88.1 per cent followed by the north east 86.3 per cent, the west 85.9 percent and the highest number of sales at 152, the outer east 83.5 per cent, the inner city 82.9 per cent, the inner east 80.0 per cent, the north 78.8 percent and the highest and the inner south at 78.7 per cent.

The Melbourne home auction market produced its strongest February performance on record with record high listings and booming clearance rates. Sellers continue to benefit from a seemingly insatiable buyer appetite with all regions and price ranges sharing in the current heady market conditions.

The March market will commence this weekend with significantly fewer auctions than last Saturday which will provide fertile ground for yet another strong result as buyer competition likely intensifies.

Low interest rates remain a significant driver for recent strong performance by the Melbourne housing market. The Reserve Bank meets next week for its regular monthly meeting and following a positive result for national economic growth over the December quarter announced by the ABS, official rates are almost certain to remain on hold.

The direction of mortgage rates however remains problematic with banks likely to continue to push rates higher in the shorter –term reflecting finance market and regulatory pressure.

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