Australia final auction clearance rate falls to 45.4%, Melbourne week ahead

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Kooky

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The final auction clearance rate across Australia's combined capital cities for the week ending Sunday 4 October 2026 was 45.4%, according to Cotality's final auction results, reported by ABC News in its business live blog on Thursday 8 October. Cotality described it as the lowest final rate since July, and it arrived five weeks into the spring selling season.

It was also a small week. Cotality counted 1,212 auctions across the combined capitals, against 1,958 in the same week a year earlier. That is 746 fewer homes under the hammer, a fall of 38.1%. A long weekend thinned the Sydney programme, while Melbourne came back from its own break a week earlier, after the AFL Grand Final.

The next test is already in the diary. The Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV), in an auction preview dated Wednesday 7 October, expects about 750 auctions in Victoria in the week ending Sunday 11 October. And for Victorian auctions held a few days after that, a new rule on reserve prices begins to apply.

From the early figure to the final one

Each auction week produces two numbers from Cotality. The first is a preliminary rate, which the trade press carried this time on 6 and 7 October. The second is the final rate, which followed this time on Thursday 8 October.

The preliminary figure for the week ending 4 October was 48.2%. The trade publication Australian Conveyancer, reporting Cotality's early results on 6 October, said that was the lowest preliminary rate since the week ending 21 June, when it stood at 47.4%, and the second-lowest of 2026. Real Estate Business, another trade title, reported the same early figure on 7 October and called it the lowest in three months.

The final count then came in lower again. The combined rate lost 2.8 percentage points between the two readings. The move was far from even between the two largest auction cities, as the table shows.

Sydney's early number had looked like the bright spot of the weekend. On the final count the city sits a little below Melbourne, and both are close to one home in two selling. The number of auctions counted also shifted slightly between the two readings: Sydney went from 304 in the preliminary results to 299 in the final ones, and Melbourne from 670 to 666.

Sydney shrank and Melbourne swelled

The two cities had opposite weekends, and that shaped the national total.

In Sydney, the long weekend cut the programme hard. Cotality's final figures show 299 auctions, down 61.4% from 774 the week before. The final clearance rate edged up by 0.9 percentage points, from 48.4% to 49.3%. Australian Conveyancer reported that Sydney's early count was also 40.5% below the same week a year earlier.

Melbourne moved the other way. The previous weekend was the AFL Grand Final long weekend, when Cotality counted only 284 auctions in the city. A week later there were 666, a rise of 134.5%. The final clearance rate rose by 2.5 percentage points, from 47.9% to 50.4%. More auctions and a slightly better rate in the same week is a combination that vendors and their agents will have noticed, though the volume was still well down on last year: Australian Conveyancer reported the early Melbourne count as 42.4% below the same week of last year.

The spring so far gives the measure of the Melbourne result. According to the same report, the city's clearance rate averaged 55.4% over the first five weeks of spring. The 50.6% early reading for the week ending 4 October was under that average, and the final figure was a touch lower again.

Together the two cities held 965 of the 1,212 auctions in Cotality's final count, about 80% of the national programme. Melbourne alone accounted for more than half.

The smaller capitals

Outside Sydney and Melbourne the numbers are small, and a handful of results can swing a rate. They still point the same way.

The ABC's report of Cotality's final results said Canberra and Perth held fewer auctions than the week before, while Adelaide and Tasmania held more. The final clearance rates for those cities were not given in that report, so the detail available is from the preliminary results carried by Real Estate Business.

On that early count Adelaide held 69 auctions and cleared 41.5% of them. Canberra held 31, with a preliminary rate of 41.7%, down 12.2 percentage points on the week before. Canberra's volume was 62% lower than a week earlier and 46% lower than a year earlier. Perth had 8 auctions and Tasmania 2, too few for a rate to mean much.

Both Adelaide and Canberra therefore opened the week with fewer than half of their auctions reported as sold, and under the combined-capitals preliminary rate of 48.2%.

Why Victoria's own count says 70%

A reader comparing sources will find a very different Melbourne-side number. The REIV, which publishes its own Victorian auction results, puts the clearance rate for the week ending 4 October at 70%. Its results page, which carries no publication date, shows 421 auctions reported, against 138 the week before and 837 a year earlier.

The two figures are not in conflict. They are different counts made with different methods, and they should not be set side by side as if one corrected the other. The REIV's breakdown shows how its own rate is built. Of the 421 auctions it reported, 178 sold at auction, 113 sold before auction day and 2 sold afterwards, which makes 293 sales. Another 128 were passed in. Those 293 sales out of 421 reported auctions give the 70%. The institute put the value of the sales at A$293 million.

The REIV's preview adds one more detail on what sits outside that base: its figure of 421 leaves out 51 auctions that were postponed and 83 that were withdrawn.

The REIV's own series shows the direction over twelve months. Its rate was 70% in each of the last two weeks, compared with 82% in the same week a year earlier. It reported about half as many auctions as it did a year ago, 421 against 837.

Higher rates and what buyers can borrow

The explanation offered with the preliminary figures was about money. Australian Conveyancer reported that Cotality economist Annabelle Mezieres linked the weak result to a recent increase in the cash rate.

"Higher rates are reducing the amount some buyers can borrow," Mezieres said, as quoted by Real Estate Business.

That is the plain mechanism in an auction room. A bidder whose borrowing limit has fallen has less room between an opening bid and a vendor's reserve, and a home that does not reach its reserve is passed in. The ABC's report of the final figures did not attach an analyst's comment to them, so this reading belongs to the preliminary results; the final rate, 2.8 percentage points lower, did nothing to contradict it.

A separate count shows how far the mood has moved in a year. Dr Andrew Wilson of My Housing Market publishes Saturday results using his own method, so his rates are not comparable with Cotality's or the REIV's. As carried by Property Update on 3 October, his Saturday figure for Sydney was 60.0%, up from 56.2% a week before and down from 77.4% a year ago. Melbourne was unchanged on the week at 59.5%, against 72.4% a year ago. Adelaide came in at 36.5%, compared with 40.8% the previous week and 82.7% a year earlier, and Canberra at 45.8%, against 52.5% and 70.8%.

Three counting methods give three levels. The REIV's rate and Dr Wilson's both sit well below where they stood twelve months earlier.

Melbourne's week ahead

The coming weekend brings the Victorian market back to something nearer its spring size. The REIV's preview of 7 October expects about 750 auctions in the week ending 11 October, spread across 246 suburbs.

That expected programme would be 329 auctions more than the REIV reported for the week ending 4 October, an increase of about 78%. It still falls short of last spring: the preview lists 941 auctions for the same weekend last year, 191 more than are expected now.

The REIV's list of the busiest is led by Craigieburn with 20 scheduled auctions, followed by Mount Waverley with 18, and Glen Waverley and Fawkner with 14 each. Those four suburbs hold 66 of the roughly 750.

For agents and auctioneers the week is a different kind of test from the last one. A clearance rate measured on a thin long-weekend programme can be moved by a few results. A programme of about 750 is a broader sample of what buyers will pay at the current cost of borrowing, and of how many vendors will accept it on the day.

The last weekend before reserve prices go public

The week ahead also has a place in the Victorian calendar for another reason. Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV), the state's regulator, says that a reserve-price disclosure rule applies to auctions held on and from Friday 16 October 2026. Its page on the changes to property sales and underquoting laws was last updated on 1 October.

The regulator's own example sets out the arithmetic: for an auction on 16 October, the reserve has to be public by 9 October, the date of this article. That makes Friday 9 October the first disclosure deadline under the rule, and the auctions of the weekend of 10 and 11 October among the last held in Victoria without it.

The rule described here is a Victorian one. How it bears on a particular sale depends on the auction date and on the regulator's detailed guidance.

Two dates follow from the sources. The week ending Sunday 11 October closes with the roughly 750 auctions the REIV expects. Then, from 16 October, Victorian auctions go ahead with the reserve already in public view.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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