Clearance rates fall after short rebound: CoreLogic

New figures released by CoreLogic have suggested that clearance rates across Australia have, once again, fallen below 70 per cent.

As per the property platform’s analysis of auctions held during the week ended 10 April, the preliminary clearance rate across the country’s capital cities, excluding Darwin, reached 68.7 per cent. 

The drop comes in the wake of last week’s brief bump upwards to a preliminary clearance rate of 70.1 per cent – a development that itself reversed a six-week trend of clearance rate decline.

Further, this latest figure marks a distinctive fall comparative to last year’s rate of 76.8 per cent.

By city, Sydney and Melbourne reported the lowest clearance rates at 65.1 per cent and 68.5 per cent respectively, followed by Brisbane (69.8 per cent), Canberra (73.4 per cent) and Adelaide (82.6 per cent).

However, Sydney and Melbourne also reported an overwhelming majority of the 3,983 auctions recorded during this week at 1,481 and 1,750 each, increasing significantly from what was both reported last week (1,105 and 1,476) and last year (821 and 1,059).

This rise across the country’s two most populous cities marked their busiest auction week during 2022 so far, marking the sixth busiest auction week on record for the NSW capital. 

Further, this elevation also contributed to what is considered by CoreLogic to be the busiest week for auctions during 2022 to date.

Compared to last year’s 2,199 auctions, this latest figure reflected a growth of 81.1 per cent.

CoreLogic has stated that this week in 2021 coincided with the “post-Easter auction slowdown”. 

Adelaide (301) and Canberra (202) were also reported as having their busiest auction week over this same period, alongside significant escalations compared to the same week in 2021 at 95 and 78 respectively. 

Brisbane (226) reported its second-highest number of auctions over this period.

This uptick in auctions follows the property platform’s most recent Home Value Index, released earlier this month, which reported that dwellings across Australia grew by 18.2 per cent in the year to March 2022.  

CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless commented at the time that “virtually every capital city and major rest-of-state region has moved through a peak in the trend rate of growth some time last year or earlier this year”.

“The sharpest slowdown has been in Sydney, where housing prices are the most unaffordable, advertised supply is trending higher and sales activity is down over the year,” he added. 

“There are a few exceptions to the slowdown, with regional South Australia recording a new cyclical high over the March quarter and some momentum is returning to the Perth market where the rate of growth is once again trending higher since WA re-opened its borders.”

[Related: Loan affordability sank over 2021]