Sydney autumn market ends with seller stampede

The Sydney autumn weekend auction market ends this weekend with another remarkable stampede of sellers keen to take advantage of the still strong local market conditions.

Nearly 850 homes are scheduled to go under the hammer this Saturday in Sydney which will be close to the May Saturday record 880 conducted last weekend and again well ahead of the 601 listed over the same weekend last year. Sydney weekend auctions have averaged over 700 this month which is clearly a new record for May

The inner west will host the highest number of auctions of the Sydney regions this weekend with 117 followed by the south 92, the upper north shore 87, the lower north 84, the northern beaches 74, the west 67, the south west 61, the north west 60, Canterbury Bankstown 40, and the central coast with 19 auctions listed for Saturday.

Mosman is the most popular suburb in Sydney this weekend with 12 followed by Maroubra, Drummoyne and Blacktown each with 10, Surry Hills and Newtown each with 9 and Ryde, Paddington and Balgowlah which will each host 8 auctions on Saturday.

Sydney’s strong home auction market continued unabated last weekend recording another top result for sellers despite a record number of May listings

Sydney recorded a clearance rate of 76.9 per cent last Saturday which was slightly lower than the previous weekend’s 79.3 per cent and similar to the 77.3 percent recorded over the same weekend last year.

Residential investor activity continues to surge despite policy initiatives from APRA the financial regulator that have led to higher interest rates and restrictive lending from banks designed to curtail market share from this group.

Latest ABS data reports that national lending to residential investors soared over March, increasing sharply by 27.1 per cent to $13.87bn.

All states recorded significantly higher levels of investor lending compared to the previous month with NSW clearly the top performer with a remarkable increase of 33.0 per cent.

NSW remains the national engine room for residential investment recording a new March record for lending of $6.91bn that accounted for 49.8 per cent of all lending nationally over the month.

Actions by policymakers to manipulate perceived imbalances in the housing market and designed to offset supposed risk can act to impede orderly market adjustments and create more problems than they solve.

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group Chief Economist Twitter@DocAndrewWilson join on LinkedIn and Facebook at MyHousingMarket.