Capped
Sydney's preliminary auction clearance rate rebounded to above 80 per cent this weekend on lower volumes.
The auction clearance rate for the corresponding weekend last year was below 70 per cent.
Despite the strong weekend result, average mortgage sizes appear to have stalled in New South Wales, as I've looked at here on this blog previously.
Caps and serviceability criteria introduced by the regulator have made access to credit a little tighter.
The median auction price this weekend was $1,230,000.
The median auction price for houses was once again only marginally higher than on the same weekend last year at $1,350,000.
However, the median auction price for units at $890,000 was up by 7.3 per cent from a year ago, or $60,500 higher.
This suggests that some buyers may have been pushed into the lower price brackets by lending restrictions.
That said, there's still been some action at the very top end of the market.
Domain reported that Atlassian's Scott Farquar paid for the mother of all purchases at around $75 million for the famous Point Piper residence 'Elaine', formerly a Fairfax owned home.
That is a record for a Sydney residence and will represent a lazy $5 million or more in stamp duty heading into the state government coffers.
Somehow in this instance I don't think the buyer was impacted by tougher lending criteria, though.
