Online Auctions Fail to Still Sellers Nerves

06 Apr Online Auctions Fail to Still Sellers Nerves

• Nearly half of all auctions withdrawn again
• Prior sales numbers surge
• Sellers likely to abandon auction

Challenges around new policies banning onsite auctions continued to see the auction market take a hit this week, over what is usually one of the busiest weeks of the year historically.  This pre-Easter weekend didn’t quite meet the usual expectations, with 45% of auctions withdrawn from sale and 84% of auctions sold prior to the event.

The last two weeks had more than 6,000 properties scheduled for auction, with anticipation high as confidence was returning to the market and home values were rising. However a rapid change of conditions and plunging confidence related to the impact of COVID-19 has changed the auction landscape with less than half of these homes selling.

There were 3,092 capital city homes scheduled for auction this week, returning a preliminary auction clearance rate of 48%. This comes off the back of last week’s final figure of 37.3%; the lowest final clearance rate recorded since CoreLogic commenced auction reporting in 2008.

Unsurprisingly the rate of withdrawn auctions remained high this week, with 45% of the auctions set to take place returning a withdrawn result. Withdrawn auctions typically comprise less than 6% of all auctions week to week.   As the week’s progress it’s highly likely scheduled volumes will be substantially lower as vendors either convert their listings to private treaty method or hold off on selling their property until selling conditions and confidence levels improve.

Get a full rundown of results in all the capitals. Kevin Brogan joins Kevin Turner to present the latest results from Core Logic.