Auction market braced for Super Saturday weekend

Auction clearance rates tracked steadily on the weekend, but were just a warm-up to a bumper amount of sales expected on Super Saturday next weekend.

The Saturday before Easter weekend is traditionally a big weekend for auctions, ahead of the quieter winter period.

Australian Property Monitors senior economist Andrew Wilson says next weekend will see record auctions in Sydney, with around 1100 expected, while in Melbourne there will be around 1200 auctions.

“It is the end of the autumn selling season and the point where you get the pre-holiday rush,” Wilson says.

“It will be a big weekend for the Sydney market… it is definitely a test for whether the high listing numbers mean there are enough buyers.”

On the weekend, Melbourne had 1016 properties listed, with 802 auctions and 580 sold. The clearance rate of 71.8% was slightly up from last week’s result of 69.8%.

The median house price in Melbourne was $791,000, while the median unit price was $511,000. The most expensive property was a four bedroom Camberwell home for $3,935,000.

Wilson says it was a very predictable weekend of results for Melbourne, not deviating from recent trends.

“The trend has been down over the past month, since the Labour Day weekend, and the clearance rate has flattened a little with high numbers of properties listed,” Wilson says.

He says Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs continued to perform well on the weekend, holding up the market with clearance rates over 80%.

In Sydney, there were 838 properties listed, with 494 auctions and 425 properties sold, with a clearance of 80.6%. This was slightly up from last week’s clearance of 75.9%.

The median house price in Sydney was $1.12 million, while the median unit price was $706,500. The most expensive property in Sydney was a five bedroom house in Kensington, for $3,775,000. Sydney’s most affordable property was a studio apartment in Auburn, sold for $156,000.

In Adelaide, the auction clearance rate was 80%, while in Brisbane it was 50.8%.