Melbourne to host bumper summer Saturday of auctions

Auction numbers will surge this weekend in Melbourne with a late season rush to market by sellers keen to take advantage of strong local conditions before the holiday shutdown.

Over 1350 homes are set to go under the hammer on Saturday which will be well ahead of last weekend’s 1173 auctions and just below the 1394 auctioned over the same weekend last year. The Melbourne market will conclude in a fortnight with over 1000 auctions scheduled – a record number for the last weekend of the season.

Melbourne’s western suburbs are yet again tops for auction activity this Saturday with 250 homes listed to go under the hammer.  Next highest is the north east with 202 auctions followed by the outer east 181, the inner south 164, the inner city 158, the inner east 145, the north 115 and the south east with 110 auctions listed.

The most popular suburb for auctions at the weekend will again be Glen Waverley with 22 closely followed by Mt Waverley and Reservoir each 17, Richmond 19, Craigieburn and East Bentleigh each with 17 and St Kilda and Glen Iris each with 15 auctions listed on Saturday.

The Melbourne home auction market roared into summer last Saturday recording its highest clearance rate for nearly two months and one of its highest results of the year.

Melbourne reported a strong clearance rate of 79.9 percent on Saturday which was higher than the 77.5 percent recorded over the previous weekend’s spring Super Saturday and well ahead of the 65.0 percent recorded over the same weekend last year.

Last Saturdays results were again evenly distributed amongst the suburban regions with the north east also again at the top of the leaderboard with an 87.0 percent clearance rate. Next highest was the recently resurgent outer east with 83.2 percent followed by the north 83.1 percent, the west 82.1 percent, the inner city 80.9 percent, the inner south 79.6 percent and the highest sales at 129, the inner east 74.8 percent and the south east 72.0 percent.

The Reserve Bank as expected decided to leave interest rates on hold again at the record low 1.5 percent at its final meeting of the year this week. The Bank is not scheduled to meet again until next February.

Although rates remained on hold, recent economic data has been mixed at best with growing signs of a further slowdown in economic activity.  Unless there is an improvement in the national economy, the likelihood remains of further cuts in official rates next year to stimulate an increasing stagnant performance – and regardless of the nature of prices growth in the Sydney and Melbourne housing markets.

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group Chief Economist Twitter@DocAndrewWilson join on LinkedIn