Quiet weekend for sagging Sydney auction market

With the remarkable Super Saturday of auctions now behind it, the Sydney auction market will take a breather over the long weekend as sellers avoid the distractions of the Labour Day holiday break.

However the battle between buyers and sellers resumes in earnest the following weekend with the local market now clearly starting to favour buyers – at last.

Just 363 homes are scheduled to go under the hammer at the weekend, well below the all-time September Saturday record of 984 listed last weekend.

Sydney averaged a remarkable 859 auctions each Saturday over September as sellers rushed into the fast fading market. The rush to market will accelerate over coming weekends with 1000 auctions expected to flood the market next Saturday – an all-time October record.

The leading suburb for auctions this weekend is Liverpool with eight, followed by Wahroonga and Eastwood each with seven, Castle Hill six, Baulkham Hills and Chatswood each with five and a number of suburbs with four auctions listed on Saturday, including Paddington, Marsfield, Sylvania and Roselands.

Sydney’s weekend home auction market continues to slide with the housing cycle now on the downswing and overriding the usual early spring bounce in activity.

Sydney’s early spring Super Saturday home auction market produced another sharply lower result last weekend with the boom-time conditions of autumn now just a fading memory.

Sydney recorded its lowest clearance rate of the year for the third consecutive weekend with the result falling below the 70 percent benchmark. The 69.6 per cent was well below the 71.3 per cent recorded the previous weekend and light years away from the 81.8 per cent reported over the same weekend last year.

Sydney’s weekend clearance rates have slid over winter and into spring and are now a far cry from the near-90 per cent rates recorded just four months ago.

Trend auction prices predictably continue to weaken in Sydney with last weekend’s result of $1,116,875 down again from the $1,117,500 recorded the previous weekend but still above the $986,375 trend recorded over the same weekend last year.

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group’s senior economist

Twitter @DocAndrewWilsonThe Property Show expert 2UE Saturdays 12.30pm to 1pm