Market update - Friday 31 May Even though auctions represent a small percentage of sales, auction clearance rates give us a highly accurate week-to-week idea of market sentiment. Other sales data usually has a significant lag to it but I always feel that clearance rates are an immediate market barometer. Generally speaking, a clearance rate above 80 per cent indicates boom time conditions while 60 per cent represents a pretty normal market. In 2013, we’ve seen clearance rate above 70 per cent and pretty much stay there week after week. This is great to see. It’s clear evidence that buyers and sellers are on the same page when it comes to prices and stock is selling pretty quickly right now. Now, while we might celebrate a clearance rate above 70 per cent, we need to keep in mind the 20-30 per cent of properties that don’t sell and what happens next in those cases. Not getting a sale on auction day is among many vendors’ worst nightmares – but it really shouldn’t be. An auction campaign simply unearths the best buyers in the market at that particular point in time. The auction itself is just one of four opportunities to sell during an auction campaign, that is – before auction; under the hammer; immediately after auction; or later. Whilst having sold many properties at auction myself, obviously I’ve had to pass in a number of those. But I’ve never found selling a property after auction to be an issue. From my experience, most properties passed in at auction usually sell within 7-10 days. Right now, the market is really firing so there’s every chance you’ll get a great result on the day. Good luck!
Posted on: Thu, 30 May 2013 21:42:51 +0000