Winter ends with rising Sydney auctions

The Sydney winter weekend auction market concludes this Saturday with a typical strong late-August offering of properties as precursor to the forthcoming spring selling season

Nearly 700 homes are set to go under the hammer on Saturday which will be well ahead of the 631 auctioned in Sydney last weekend and significantly higher than the 574 auctioned over the same weekend last year.

The inner west will reclaim top spot this weekend and host the most regional auctions with 88 listed. Next highest is the city and east with 87 followed by the upper north shore 77, the lower north 68, the northern beaches 60, Canterbury Bankstown 53, the west 50, the north west 44, the south west 41 and the central coast with 9 auctions.

Mosman is the leading Sydney auction suburb this weekend with 12 followed by Castle Hill and Lane Cove each with 9, Randwick, Maroubra and St Ives each with 8 and a number of suburbs with 7 auctions listed including Chatswood, Manly and Collaroy.

The Sydney auction market eased last Saturday following the previous weekend’s season-high result with weaker results from the western suburbs clearly dragging the clearance rate down

Sydney reported a clearance rate of 69.4 per cent last Saturday which was the lowest weekend rate since June 10 and well down on the 73.7 per cent recorded the previous weekend. Last Saturdays result was also again significantly lower than the 84.1 per cent reported over the same weekend last year when the local market was supercharged by interest rate cuts.

Higher-priced, inner-suburban regions continue to attract buyers in Sydney with clearance rates in these areas remaining consistently above 70 per cent.  Sydney’s mid and outer western suburbs however, were sharply lower last weekend and were a clear factor for the lower overall clearance rate.

First home buyers remain thin on the ground in NSW particularly reflecting high and still-rising prices in the Sydney housing market. Latest data from the ABS reported that 1528 first home buyer loans were approved over June in NSW which was a fall of 4.5 per cent compared to the previous month.

NSW first home buyer loan numbers have now fallen by 5.2 percent over the first 6 months of this year compared to the same period last year and currently account for a near record low 4.6 percent of all residential lending approvals in the state. This is clearly the lowest market share of all the states and well below the next highest Victoria with 9.2 percent.

Recently lower first home buyer numbers in NSW may reflect stamp duty reductions for this group that came into force on July 1 with buyers holding back until that date. Regardless of these new benefits, the Sydney market will remain a monumental challenge for first home buyers for the foreseeable future.

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