Robust Sydney market spells for winter break

The Sydney home auction market is winding down for the usual mid-winter break with buyer and seller activity now in pause mode through July and into August.

Fewer than 400 homes are scheduled to be auctioned this weekend in Sydney. This is higher than last weekend’s federal-election-affected 200 auctions, but well below the previous two weekends’ 600 plus offerings.

This weekend, auction numbers are again well below the 604 listed over the same weekend last year and continues this year’s trend of significantly lower auction listings. Nearly 3000 fewer weekend auctions have been conducted in Sydney this year compared with the same time last year – a fall of over 20 per cent.

Sydney’s inner west is scheduled to conduct the highest number of auctions this weekend with 63, followed by the upper north shore 55, the south 43, the south west 40, the city and east 37, the lower north 28, the west 27, the north west 20, the northern beaches 19, Canterbury Bankstown 18, the central coast 12 and the Blue Mountains with two auctions listed at the weekend.

St Ives will host the most auctions in Sydney this weekend with seven followed by Strathfield and Fairfield each with six and many suburbs with four auctions listed including Marsfield, Ryde, Maroubra, Balmain, Turramurra, Camperdown and Narrabeen.

The Sydney home auction market reported another healthy clearance rate for sellers last weekend despite the distractions of Saturday’s federal election.

Sydney recorded a clearance rate of 73.5 per cent which was slightly below the previous weekends 74.1 per cent but again well below the 83.3 per cent reported over the same weekend last year.

Regional results were again reasonably familiar despite low auction numbers and followed the pattern of recent weekends with outer suburbs clearly underperforming.

The Sydney home auction market now heads into the typically quieter mid-winter season in good shape overall. Sydney recorded a total clearance rate of 71.7 per cent over June which was higher than 69.2 per cent over May. 

Low and falling interest rates continue to support buyer and seller confidence with strong competition among banks for mortgage customers also driving housing demand. Although the Reserve Bank has decided to leave interest rates on hold over July, at the record low 1.75 per cent, the odds have certainly narrowed for a cut sooner rather than later. This could even be as soon as next month.

The June quarter inflation data due to be released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on July 27 will provide a key determinant of future rate settings with another low result likely to activate the bank.

Political uncertainly both locally and internationally can only add to the case for a rate cut to help an underperforming national economy.

Andrew Wilson is Domain Group’s chief economist

Twitter @DocAndrewWilson

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