More solid auction numbers to provide relief for hungry buyers

Sydney home buyers will have another weekend of reasonable choices with auction listings similar to last weekend’s solid numbers. 

More than 750 homes will go under the hammer, similar to the 760 auctioned last weekend. Although auction activity is typically rising through the late-spring market, numbers remain below last year’s offerings but the gap is narrowing. Last year in the same weekend, 863 auctions were listed and next weekend Sydney is set for its biggest spring day of the year with more than 900 auctions scheduled.

The city and east will host the highest number of auctions of all the Sydney suburban regions this weekend with 105, followed by the inner west with 101, the south 99, the upper north 93, the lower north 71, the west 59, the northern beaches 55, the south-west 54, the north-west 43, Canterbury-Bankstown 31, the central coast 28 and the Blue Mountains with one auction scheduled for Saturday.

Blacktown is the most popular auction suburb in Sydney this weekend with 10 followed by Mosman, Lane Cove and Carlingford each with nine and several suburbs with eight auctions listed including Epping, Castle Hill, Maroubra, Beecroft and Paddington.

Sydney’s home auction market bounced back last Saturday, recording yet another boom-time result with no real sign yet of the usual late-spring easing in clearance rates.   

Sydney recorded a weekend clearance rate of 80.4 per cent, which was a jump from the previous Saturday’s 77 per cent and light years ahead of the 62.6 per cent recorded for the same weekend last year.

Despite the previous weekend’s lower result, Sydney’s Saturday clearance rates have averaged 80.2 per cent during the 11 weeks of spring so far in what continues to be a strong sellers’ market.

With the exception of the Blue Mountains, which again scored a 100 per cent clearance rate from its single reported auction, Sydney failed to record a regional clearance rate above 90 per cent for the first time since September 10.  

Regional results, however, remained consistently strong overall with Canterbury-Bankstown at 88.9 per cent followed by the northern beaches 88.2 per cent, the inner west 87.7 per cent, the upper north shore 85.4 per cent from the most sales at 70, the lower north 83.1 per cent, the south 80 per cent, the city and east 76.8 per cent, the north-west 75 per cent, the west 74.5 per cent, the south-west 65 per cent and the central coast with a clearance rate of 50 per cent.

Sydney’s strong housing market is being fuelled by increasing activity by residential investors. Latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows the value of investor finance approved in September in NSW increased 8.9 per cent during the month to $6.18 billion.

The September result was 13.7 per cent higher than that recorded during September last year but the total for the first nine months of this year remains 11.4 per cent lower than that for the same period last year.

The value of residential investor lending accounted for 57.6 per cent of all lending for housing purchases in September and was the highest state local market share.  NSW also accounted for 48.7 per cent of all lending to investors nationally. 

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group’s chief economist

Twitter @DocAndrewWilson

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