Winter ends with Melbourne auction market heating up

The Melbourne winter weekend auction season concludes this Saturday with the local market on the rise with higher numbers of buyers and sellers indicating a robust spring selling season ahead

Melbourne will host over 900 auctions this weekend which will be well ahead of last weekend’s 821 and higher than the 878 auctioned over the same weekend last year.

Melbourne’s west remains the most popular region for auctions this Saturday with 174 scheduled followed by the north east 140, the inner south 139, the outer east 108, the inner east 104, the inner city 96, the  north 87 and the south east with 48 auctions listed.

East Bentleigh is the most popular suburb for auctions in Melbourne this weekend with 16 followed by Reservoir 15, Craigieburn and Kew each with 13, Mt Waverley and Hoppers Crossing each with 12, Greensborough 11 and Brighton with 11 auctions listed for Saturday.

The Melbourne home auction market bounced back hard last Saturday following the previous weekend’s year-low result and recorded its highest clearance rate for the season so far.

Melbourne reported a clearance rate of 78.3 per cent last weekend which was significantly higher than the previous weekends 71.7 per cent result and the highest recorded since May 20. Last Saturday’s result was also higher than the 77.7 per cent reported over the same weekend last year.

Melbourne’s northern suburbs are clearly booming and continue to produce super-strong results for most sellers.  Following the previous Saturday’s lower results, clearance rates in the higher-priced, inner-suburban regions improved although the inner east remained a clear under-performer but on significantly higher listings.

First home buyer activity in Victoria remains relatively low reflecting recent strong price growth in the Melbourne housing market. Latest data from the ABS reported that 1528 first home buyer loans were approved over June in Victoria which was a fall of 2.6 per cent compared to the previous month.

Victorian first home buyer loan numbers have now fallen by 5.3 percent over the first 6 months of this year compared to the same period last year and currently account for a record low 9.2 percent of all residential lending approvals in the state. This is the second lowest market share of all the states with only NSW lower at just 4.6 percent.

Recently lower first home buyer numbers in Victoria may reflect stamp duty reductions for this group that came into force on July 1 with buyers holding back until that date. These new benefits will likely result in higher numbers of first home buyers although the prospect of sharply higher house prices will act to offset activity from the group over the longer -term.

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