More homes than ever before are being withdrawn from auction in Canberra

The number of properties withdrawn prior to auction day is at an all-time high for Canberra, new Domain data shows.

More than one in 10 homes are being withdrawn before auction day. From available records, this is the highest withdrawals have been, and much higher than the decade average of 3.3 per cent.

“Vendors choosing to withdraw their home from auction rather than letting the auction situation play out indicates vendors are wary about sending their home to auction,” said Domain senior research analyst Nicola Powell.

“It means vendors are not confident their home will sell under the hammer, and they would rather pull it out than actually see the auction fail.”

Despite more homes being withdrawn from auction, Canberra’s auction performance has bounced back slightly, with April’s clearance rate of almost 50 per cent the highest for the nation’s capital since October last year.

This result has been supported by the rise in clearance rates for unit auctions. Over April, unit clearance rates outperformed houses; 57 per cent of units sold under the hammer, compared to 49 per cent of houses.

Only 202 properties were auctioned last month – the lowest volume since July 2018 (excluding January).

Auction volume was down more than a third compared to March, and year-on-year it was down 28.9 per cent.

“Canberra has been impacted by the numerous public holidays, the later Easter and ANZAC day … [but] auction volumes have been trending downwards anyway in Canberra,” Dr Powell said. “Lower volumes tend to elevate the clearance rate but, to be clear, clearance rates haven’t lifted very much, they have just improved from the very poor performance last month.”

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Belconnen and Woden Valley were the best performers on a district level, both recording a clearance rate of 55 per cent. But Belconnen’s clearance rate was down 17.4 per cent year-on-year, while Woden was marginally up at 0.7 per cent.

Gungahlin recorded the lowest clearance rate at 38.5 per cent.

April’s performance comes as Canberra experienced its first annual fall in house prices in more than six years. The median house price of $722,440 is down 2 per cent, according to the Domain House Price Report.

Average days on the market for houses in Canberra sits at 72 – up 41 per cent year-on-year and for units, it’s 93 days – up 3 per cent year-on-year.

Time on the market for houses is lowest in Belconnen at 48 days and highest in Molonglo at 125 days. For units, it’s lowest in Gungahlin at 72 days and highest in Queanbeyan at 150 days.