Across Australia home auction activity has stalled again just days after the central bank lifted the cost of borrowing at a third straight meeting.
According to Domain, the early data suggests national auctions activity is more than one fifth quieter than the more than 2,100 auctions held this time last year.
“The number of homes going to auction has dropped 4.5% compared to last week and down a staggering 30% annually.”
The current pipeline of city auctions scheduled in the coming weeks suggests that auction activity will remain soft and getting softer.
CoreLogic and SQM Research say Sydney enjoyed the busiest auction week amongst the capitals for the second straight week. But that’s likely cold comfort during colder weather.
Scheduled auctions across Sydney are still heavily down – almost 12% from the 756 auctions held the previous week.
Now, despite its national leadership, the numbers out of Domain suggest Sydney’s auction clearance rate has dropped to its lowest level in years, with almost one in two homes failing to find a buyer.
The Fairfax-run property platform’s auction clearance rate dropped to 52.1% in June. They now say one in four sellers chose to scrap or postpone their scheduled auction.
There was also a fair bit of consternation on social media at the data property firm’s calculations regrading the sudden sharp falls in Sunday’s CoreLogic daily house price series.
CoreLogic’s rolling three-month weighting just dropped off the pre-Easter numbers which were the boom’s almost official last hurrah.
Nevertheless, the CoreLogic Daily Home Value Index, which provides daily capital growth measurements for all dwellings, including both houses and units, has seen some temperamental action.
SQM Research’s latest nationwide tally of auctions (below) represents the most recent known auction counts by late Sunday night. Counts include properties that may have been withdrawn and/or sold prior.
NATIONWIDE TOTALS:
Getting pretty distressed
The number of distressed listings across Australia also grew in June according to SQM Research’s Louis Christopher, with the trend likely to continue winding it’s way back to pre-pandemic levels sooner than later.
SQM’s latest work on June distressed listings has uncovered an almost 5% rise month-on-month.
There were some 6,014 fast-track sales – a number SQM Research director Louis Christoper notes is more or less consistent nationwide. The strongest distressed listings out of NSW (over 10%) and in Victoria (6.2%).
However, growth in distressed listings was also observed in Queensland, Tassie and Western Australia. Probably worth adding that housing markets in New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Canada and here are considered particularly vulnerable to falling prices, according to work by Bloomberg Economics.
Separate findings by CoreLogic also noted that Brisbane, Hobart and Perth all experienced quarterly increases in prices over this same period.
In South Australia, the hottest rental market in the country, distressed listings actually fell over June.