By Caitlin Fono, Research Analyst, CoreLogic Australia

There are 2,151 capital city homes currently scheduled for auction this week, down -3.8% from last week when 2,237 auctions were held, although 12.0% higher than this time last year (1,921).

Melbourne is set to see auction volumes drop -11.3% this week with 979 auctions currently scheduled, down from 1,104 last week. This week’s expected volumes are 14.2% higher than the same week last year when 857 auctions were held across the city.

Sydney is expecting 778 auctions this week, just five more than last week when 773 auctions were held. This time last year, 747 Sydney homes were taken to auction.

Across the smaller capitals, Brisbane (173) and Adelaide (151) are expecting to see an increase in auction volumes week-on-week, up 13.1% and 26.9% respectively. Meanwhile, Canberra (66) and Perth (4) will see fewer auctions week-on-week. There are no auctions on the radar in Tasmania this week.

Auction activity is expected to increase next week, with just under 2,250 auctions currently scheduled across the combined capital cities.

Summary of last week’s results

There were 2,237 homes taken to auction across the combined capitals last week, just 1.6% higher than the previous week (2,202) although 32.2% higher than this time last year (1,692).

The final clearance rate came in at 65.1% last week, down -80 basis points from the previous week (65.9%), and -5.6 percentage points lower than one year ago (70.7%). Last week saw the withdrawal rate increase slightly with 7.8% of homes withdrawn from auction, up from 6.8% over the previous week, however the portion of properties passed in at auction held steady week-on-week at 27.2%.

Sydney’s auction numbers rose 2.4% last week, with 773 homes auctioned across the city. The previous week saw 755 homes go under the hammer, while this time last year, 650 auctions were held. Sydney’s final clearance rate came in at 68.7% last week, down -40 basis points from the previous week (69.1%) and -3.6 percentage points lower than this time last year (72.3%).

There were 1,104 homes taken to auction in Melbourne last week, up 4.4% from the previous week (1,057) and 48.4% higher than the same week last year (744). Melbourne’s final clearance rate fell -3.4 percentage points last week coming in at 60.4%, down from 63.8% over the previous week, making it the second lowest clearance rate so far this year. Over the same week last year, 70.4% of homes taken to auction across Melbourne were successful.

Brisbane (153) was once again the busiest auction market across the smaller capitals last week, followed by Adelaide (119), Canberra (74) and Perth (12). Adelaide (82.2%) continued to record the highest clearance rate across the smaller capitals, followed by Brisbane (70.4%), Perth (66.7%) and Canberra (59.5%). Just one of the two auctions held in Tasmania last week was successful.