Auction activity hits fresh high a week out from usual seasonal peak

Preliminary CoreLogic capital city auction statistics for the week to Sunday February 26 saw Brisbane pull a clearance rate of 63,6 per cent, a strong rise over last year’s 57.4 per cent.

The weighted average across the capital cities also jumped to 78.6 per cent – from 71.4 per cent last year.

There were dramatic increases in the number of properties taken to auction, with 3,232 auctions held across the capitals.

“The record highs for the number of auctions were confined to the Sydney (1,169) and Melbourne (1,613) markets, where auction numbers were the highest on record for the month of February,” according to the CoreLogic Property Market Indicator.

Numbers were “significantly higher”, though the market usually saw “auction volumes generally reaching their seasonal peaks around March”.

The highest price fetched for a property in the past week was $6.55 million for 404 Edgecliff Road, Woollahra in New South Wales, with Queensland’s highest coming out of Hope Island at $4.75m.