Auctions clearing stock

THE proportion of homes sold at auctions nationally held above the 75 per cent mark although activity was subdued given the Queen’s Birthday long weekend.

Meanwhile property sales in Melbourne showed signs of recovery as the city emerged from its Covid lockdown, although the number of auctions was down sharply from the rush of sales in the weeks leading up to June.

With confirmation of the Melbourne lockdown coming to an end late last week, 365 auctions were held across the city compared with 1081 the previous week.

Of the results collected so far, 73 per cent were successful, according property tracker CoreLogic. This was up from the previous week’s final clearance rate of 64 per cent.

Nationally there were 1426 homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities, well down on the 2668 in the previous week.

Of the results collected so far, some 77.4 per cent were successful compared with the previous week’s final clearance rate of 70.6 per cent.

Sydney remains resilient with a preliminary auction clearance rate of 78.5 per cent over this weekend, compared with the previous week’s final clearance rate of 75.6 per cent.

There were 749 homes taken to auction across Sydney in the week, compared with 1164 in the preceding week.

“Sydney’s final auction clearance rate has held above 75 per cent all year, and this week is likely to be no different, although the trend has clearly softened since late March when the auction clearance rate peaked at 87.6 per cent,” CoreLogic said in its analysis.

Across the other capital cities, Adelaide recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 86 per cent, followed by Canberra where preliminary results show 82.5 per cent of auctions resulted in a sale. Brisbane recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 75.5 per cent.

Perth’s clearance rate came in at 70 per cent across only 21 auctions.

The figures come amid signs banks are repricing their longer term fixed loan rates, marking an end to ultra-low long-term mortgage rates.

ANZ on Friday hiked its four and five-year rates by up to 0.45 per cent for owneroccupiers.

The increase is in step with market trend, with lenders across the board lifting rates in anticipation of a rise in borrowing costs when the Reserve Bank’s term funding facility expires this month.

The RBA’s term funding facility, which offered threeyear funding to authorised deposit-taking institutions, was introduced in March last year to help keep credit flowing through the pandemic.

Data from RateCity.com.au shows that in the past month there have been 48 hikes to three, four and five-year rates and only seven cuts, all to three-year rates.

But the data also shows that among one and two-year fixed rates, lenders are doing more cutting than hiking – there have been 26 cuts against 17 hikes, which include Westpac’s lifting of two-year fixed rates earlier this week.