Melbourne's western suburbs top auctions for last weekend

The Melbourne home auction market will end the year this weekend with a great big bang not a whimper, with the western suburbs soaring.

With only six days left Christmas, a remarkable 700-plus actions are likely to be conducted this Saturday as sellers continue to confidently support the top-performing local market. 

Although auction numbers will be predictably well down on last weekend’s 1394 listings, they are well ahead of the 490 conducted over the same weekend last year.

This Saturday’s home auction offering will set a new record for a pre-Christmas Saturday, clearly ahead of the previous high of 590 auctions set in 2009.

The most popular region for auctions this Saturday is the west, with 150 scheduled, followed by the north-east 122, the north 97, the outer east 96, the south-east 67, the inner east 60, the inner city 59 and the inner south 47.

The most popular suburb for auctions at the weekend is Reservoir with 16 followed by Craigieburn 14, St Albans, Essendon and Mill Park each with 13, Mount Waverley and Lalor each with 11 and Northcote and Preston each with 10 auctions listed.

The early summer auction market produced another solid result last weekend with a clearance rate of 68.2 per cent, higher than the 65 per cent recorded the previous weekend and just below the 70.8 per cent recorded over the same weekend last year.​

An improved overall clearance rate last weekend reflected strong inner-suburban results that contributed to the market lift.

The trend weekend auction price fell last Saturday, down from the previous weekend’s $771,250 to $761,250. The weekend trend price remains 3.2 per cent higher than the $737,472 recorded over the same weekend last year. 

The inner east recorded the highest median house auction price last Saturday at $1.3 million followed by the inner city $1.24 million, the inner south $1.03 million, the outer east $906,000, the north-east $670,000, the west $660,000, the north $648,725 and the south-east $570,250.

The Melbourne home auction market is ending the year on a high with clearance rates holding up encouragingly over the past month despite the usual late spring, early summer seasonal impact of higher listing numbers.

The strengthening of the local economy this year has been a key driver of the resilience of the Melbourne housing market. Latest ABS data for November reports that Victoria has added 91,810 to the workforce over the past year with the seasonally adjusted jobless rate falling from 6.7 per cent to 6.2 per cent.

Although clearance rates have typically eased over the spring selling season, Melbourne buyers and sellers can remain quietly confident regarding their prospects for the final record-breaking Saturday of the year. 

The Melbourne market has produced a resilient performance this year despite increases in mortgage rates since June and will end 2015 as the nation’s strongest capital city home auction market.

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group’s senior economist

@DocAndrewWilson