Melbourne's strong home auction market tested again

The strong early-season home auction market will be tested again with a sharp increase in auctions scheduled this Saturday.

This weekend, 442 auctions are listed, which is well ahead of the 203 listed last Saturday but below the 474 conducted over the same weekend last year.

The home auction market has made an encouraging start to the year and last Saturday recorded its strongest weekend result since the middle of August last year.

Last weekend’s clearance rate was 79.2 per cent, which was well ahead of the previous weekend’s 74.1 per cent and also significantly higher than the 67.2 per cent recorded over the same weekend last year.

Early-season auction results can be volatile reflecting relatively low numbers of auctions and an uneven mix of property types, regions and price ranges. The past two weekends, however, have clearly indicated a resilient local housing market with continuing solid underlying demand and supply drivers.

A higher proportion of inner suburban properties will go under the hammer in Melbourne this Saturday and this trend can be expected to continue over coming weekends.

The most popular suburban region for auctions this weekend is the west with 107 followed by the inner south with 67, the outer east 53, the north-east and the inner city each with 51, the south-east and the inner east each with 38 and the north with 37 auctions listed this weekend.

Bentleigh East will host the most number of auctions this weekend with 11, followed by South Yarra, Flemington and Glen Iris each with eight, Craigieburn seven and a number of suburbs with six auctions listed, including Reservoir, Cheltenham and Northcote.

The Melbourne weekend auction market has commenced the early-year selling season with the best results for this time of the year since 2010. With significantly higher auction numbers and a broader spread of property types and regions, this weekend will provide a more substantial environment to assess the current underlying nature of the Melbourne housing market.

The local market, however, now appeals as remaining quietly confident despite a sharply lower sharemarket and growing concerns over the direction of the national and global economies.  

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group’s chief economist

Twitter @DocAndrewWilson