Cotality’s daily dwelling values index continues to fall across all major Australian capital cities.
Over the past month, values have fallen by 1% at the 5-city aggregate level, with Sydney (-1.5%) and Melbourne (-1.2%) leading the decline and smaller falls recorded across the other major capitals.
Sydney’s and Melbourne’s declines from peaks are now well past 5%, whereas the other major capitals are at the beginning of their downturns.
At the 5-city aggregate level, values have now declined by 3% from the most recent peak.
One positive is that the auction market has posted a modest rebound recently, with final auction clearance rates climbing from the lows recorded in June, as illustrated below.
Even so, the final auction clearance rate across the combined capital cities has remained below 50% for 10 consecutive weeks and remains well down on the prior two years, as illustrated by CBA below.
This weekend’s preliminary auction results from Cotality posted another rebound, with the clearance rate rising to 55.1% at the combined capital city level, up significantly from the low point of 47.4% over the week ending 21 June and reaching an 11-week high.
Source: Cotality
Melbourne’s preliminary clearance rate of 60.8% broke the 60% mark for the first time since the week ending May 24th, whereas Sydney’s preliminary clearance rate of 57.0% was the highest reading in four weeks.
Even so, this week’s lift in clearance rates is from a very low base and is still holding well below average levels. For comparison, the average preliminary clearance rate over the past decade is 68%.
Auction volumes were also still 12.5% lower than at the same time last year, marking the 12th week in a row that they have been lower than a year ago.
Thus, while the auction market has improved somewhat, it remains weak overall and portends further house price falls.
The housing market correction remains entrenched.
