A great weekend for the Melbourne auction market!!

MELBOURNE’s auction market had its highest clearance rate over the weekend since the end of the property boom in December 2007.

Of the 452 properties up for auction, 83 per cent sold and 77 properties were passed in!

However, the number of properties for auction was 126 fewer than at the same time last year!

The CEO of Real Estate Institute of Victoria attributed the high clearance rate to the extension of the first-home buyer’s grant announced in last week’s federal Budget, combined with low interest rates and an increase in investor numbers.

“It’s off a low base. There were not a lot of auctions,” Mr Raimondo said.

The part of the market performing really well is priced at or below the medium of about $410,000.

“In the last 12 months that’s stayed very stable.”

Mr Raimondo expects the strong clearance rate to continue.

“The next two weeks we expect to see just under 1300 auctions, which is a very high number of auctions at this time of the year.

“I expect the clearance rate to remain high until the September 30 when the full first-home owner’s boost will be phased out.”

Flat and apartment clearances were also strong: 90 per cent of 136 properties at auction sold.

The latest residential land report from the Housing Industry Association revealed Melbourne’s median land price grew 0.7 per cent in the December quarter to a record $152,000.

The HIA-RP Data residential land report showed the price of land in Melbourne was up 4.8 per cent over the year.

The median land price in regional Victoria fell 2.8 per cent in the December quarter to $97,250, the lowest price since mid-2007.

WHAT a difference a year makes in real estate.

Interesting article in the Herald Sun stating the difference in clearence rates between now and last year, heres an extract:

On the last Saturday of major sales activity in 2007, 1132 properties went to auction, according to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (SHS, December 15).

Last month, as the industry filed its final big weekend of sales results for 2008, 609 auctions were staged, more than 500 fewer.

Almost one in two properties taken to auction failed to sell under the hammer between last October 18 and December 13, excluding Melbourne Cup weekend when the clearance rate returned to 66 per cent.

Yet private sale numbers have barely shifted.

There were 639 private sales reported to the REIV in the week before Christmas 2008 — 683 private sales were reported in the same week in 2007.

Private sales represented about 52 per cent of all sales reported to the REIV between December 7 and December 13, 2008. A year earlier, private sales made up about 37 per cent of all property sales between December 9 and December 15.

Read the full article here:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24924678-5013926,00.html