Auction market continues to improve amid Sydney lockdown

Sydney still saw 1,101 homes taken to auction. All in all, only 5 per cent of auctions that were scheduled didn’t take place, with 52 auctions rescheduled to a later date.

Despite the lockdown-induced hiccup, Real Estate Institute of New South Wales (REINSW) CEO Tim McKibbin remained positive as Sydney continues to display strong fundamentals.

“While the operating environment for agents and consumers is temporarily interrupted, the fundamentals remain largely unchanged.

“Demand still outstrips supply, and prices can be expected to remain strong, though the pace of growth has naturally eased,” he said.

Ray White Pennant Hills Group principal Dion Verzeletti shared the sentiment, saying: “We got through COVID last year, and we believe we can do it again.”

“There is no need to panic, but simply to be safe and carry on,” he added.

Down in Melbourne, the Victorian capital is powering onwards and upwards from its own COVID-induced slump, recording its second busiest auction week of the year, with 1,414 auctions held – the highest of all major capital cities.

Smaller capital cities continued to record much lower volumes, with Brisbane at 177, Adelaide at 148, Canberra at 109, Perth at 25 and Tasmania at two.

Amid the increase in auction volumes, CoreLogic reported that clearance rates held steady across the combined capital cities.

Of the 2,417 results collected so far, 81.2 per cent were successful – higher than last week’s final clearance rate of 74.1 per cent when 2,400 auctions were held.

Canberra saw the highest preliminary clearance rate at 87.8 per cent, while Sydney followed with 81.8 per cent – of which 9 per cent were withdrawn and 45.4 per cent were sold prior to auction.

Adelaide saw the third highest preliminary clearance rate at 78.9 per cent, followed by Melbourne with 75.9 per cent, Perth with 68.8 per cent and Brisbane with 57.2 per cent.