Geelong auction action heats up

GEELONG has once again taken the title of top regional auction market in the country, thanks to high competition and low levels of housing stock.

According to CoreLogic data, clearance rates fell 1.8 per cent to 75.8 per cent in the June quarter, but the total number of auctions is well above the previous quarter.

In the three months to June there were 581 auctions across the region compared with 366 in the March quarter.

Hayeswinckle, Highton agent Michelle Winckle said demand could not keep up as Geelong grew economically.

“There’s an influx of buyers coming from Melbourne, and the country as well, down to Geelong because of the hospital, the university, WorkSafe and all the new jobs being created,” she said.

“There’s a higher demand for properties in the inner suburbs, there’s less stock on the market and people are fighting it out for them.”

In the past three years, high demand for property has eaten into a backlog of property on the market, dropping from 2519 listings at the start of 2014, to 256 as of June.

New listings have failed to keep up with buyer demand and last month only 62 properties were listed.

Manifold Heights vendor Bernadette Middleton has opted for the auction method to sell 27 Herne St, expecting somewhere between $480,000 and $520,000 when it goes under the hammer today.

“We had a couple of agents through and everyone said ‘auction’,” she said.

“The auction campaign is quite controlled, it just runs for the four weeks. I had noticed all of the houses in our area had been for auction,” she said.

“The price you would put on it as a private sale is your reserve so you’re going to sell at that price anyway, you might as well try to get a little extra.”