Impetus holds in Sydney
There was a big uplift in the number of Sydney auctions this weekend to just shy of 800, considerably higher than both the preceding weekend and from last year.
Despite the changes to the availability of depreciation deductions for negative gearing expected to be legislated following the Budget, there was still market momentum in evidence, at least in the sales reported to date.
Sydney's preliminary auction clearance rate rose to 79.3 per cent on Saturday, well up from the final clearance rate of 70.3 per cent last weekend, and also ahead of the 76 per cent recorded for the same auction weekend of last year.
CoreLogic reported a very similar preliminary clearance rate of 79.4 per cent, with the results of well over 900 Sydney auctions to be collated over the course of the week.
The preliminary median reported auction price was $1,275,000, up by nearly 14 per cent or $155,000 from $1,120,000 on the same auction weekend last year.
Although there is stacks of equity sloshing around the Sydney market, the median auction price for houses appears to be struggling to rise much further, perhaps due to serviceability constraints, up from $1,365,250 to $1,417,500 for a year-on-year increase of just 3.8 per cent or $52,250.
Unit auction prices showed a stronger uplift from $803,000 last year to $927,000, a much larger equivalent increase of $124,000 or 15.4 per cent.
There were some big pries paid for apartments in the inner suburbs of the lower north shore and in Surry Hills.
Despite this unfolding trend there was clearly still appetite for houses in Strathfield, with by far the biggest recorded sale of the week notching $8.8 million. The sale was not to a Chinese buyer.
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Huge week of news ahead, kicking off with the March 2017 Housing Finance data tomorrow morning.
