Sunday, 14 April 2019

De facto rate cuts bite

Auction clearances rise...in Sydney

Continuing a theme of recent weeks, widespread lower fixed mortgage rates and a slight loosening of credit and interest-only lending have already seen Sydney's auction market bounce off the lows.

The preliminary clearance rate was all the way up to 65 per cent for Sydney, while the median price of properties sold at auction was over $100,000 higher than it has been at $1,225,000.

The final clearance rate for the same week a year earlier was only 53.8 per cent, so it's quite a lift from there. 

There are still many apartments completing in Sydney, but those are all pre-sold.

Melbourne is lagging a long way behind, perhaps a year further back in its cycle, and with considerably more stock on the market.


For completeness, Real Estate reported a 69 per cent clearance rate for New South Wales.


And Auction Insider recorded 68 per cent clearance for Sydney from 756 listed, up from below 60 per cent for the same Saturday last year. 


New listings are set to be even lower than they already have been in Sydney over the next few months.

Meanwhile cf. my previous expectation that it likely takes about three months for credit to begin flowing again after a regulatory investigation winds up...well, that loosening up is still about a month in the future, realistically, but the signs this week have been positive.