Property market blooms on first weekend of spring

THE first weekend of spring was one of the biggest of the year for auctions, representing a return to form following a lacklustre start to last year’s peak-property season.

Potential homebuyers could have choosen from 2401 properties listed for auction across the nation’s capital cities this weekend, according to data from CoreLogic Australia.

It’s a 5.4 per cent bump on listings from the previous week, making it the third busiest of the year behind the weeks ending 26 February and 2 April, which saw 2429 and 2687 auctions respectively.

It is also a 46.6 per cent jump in the number of listings compared with the start of last year’s spring season, which Corelogic economist Kaytlin Ezzy blamed on weaker selling conditions at the time, including rising interest rates and falling dwelling values.

Chief economist for Ray White Group, Nerida Conisbee, said spring generally sees increased levels of activity on the property market.

“It is where we see a bump in properties for sale generally, because homes look better and people are back from the June-July holiday period,” she said.

“It does generally mean we see more properties coming to sale and buyers come out.”

Ms Conisbee said despite more properties coming to market and interest rates high, prices have failed to pull back as much as could have been expected.

“Even though more properties are coming to market we’re just not seeing a price reduction as a result of that occurring,” she said.

“We did see them pull back very briefly in July, but it was a really tiny reduction and in August it has surged back again.

“If you were a buyer and you were hoping to pick up a bargain, that time has really come to an end and it is looking a lot better for sellers at this point.”

Last weekend, 66.8 per cent of the 2278 homes that went to auction sold, a higher clearance rate than the same time last year.

In Sydney alone, 1010 homes are due to go under the hammer this week, and on average will fetch the highest prices in the country.

Melbourne will host the busiest auction market this weekend, with 1020 homes on the auction block representing a small decline in the number of listings last weekend.

Of the smaller capitals, Brisbane will see the most auction action, with 155 homes listed, followed by Adelaide with 104 and Canberra with 101.

Contributing to the bump in listings is a higher number of investors choosing to exit the market, believed to be partially due to higher interest rates and a lower opinion of landlords generally, according to Ms Conisbee.

“It’s actually quite unfortunate, because landlords do provide 90 per cent of rental homes,” Ms Conisbee said.

“So if we do see a lot of investors selling and those properties go to owner occupiers then we lose them from the rental pool.”

– DUNCAN MURRAY/AAP