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