| Auction Wrap |
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A total of 406 auctions were offered over the weekend. The clearance rate was 61%, which is slightly lower than last weekend. Once again, apartments fared better than houses in clearances at auction. The inner city has tightened up dramatically and this is helping keep it rock solid. As the inner city also provides investors with a promising future in the rental market, this is still driving much demand. Traditionally strong family areas such as Malvern, Brighton, Balwyn, Beaumaris, Camberwell etc are really struggling, as they don’t benefit as much from the investor influx and property stock is more prevalent. That’s one of the great things about the inner ring property belt; they suit both investors and owner-occupiers. So when one market softens in one area, (Example; the owner-occupier market) the investor market is still active and vice versa. Take this example: Malvern and Malvern East had 15 auctions over the weekend. 9 properties ‘passed in’ on the day. Many on a ‘vendor bid’. Swapping sides of the city to the West, Footscray had 9 auctions booked for the day. All 9 cleared. Last year on the same weekend we had about 150 more auction conducted. The market will be moving in a really interesting direction over the next few months. Potential interest rate decreases could stimulate the market into another gear; this could be limited however to the more tightly held inner city areas. | | |
