The five Melbourne suburbs with a 100% auction clearance rate

There are suburbs in Melbourne where home owners are almost guaranteed to sell their property under the hammer. 

In Melbourne’s rising property market, five suburbs have achieved a 100 per cent clearance over autumn. 

They are the outer-eastern suburbs of Blackburn North, Heathmont and Wantirna, and Glen Huntly and Hughesdale in the inner south.

A three-bedroom house with an attached self-contained cottage in Heathmont went under the hammer on Saturday.

It passed in at $825,000, after bidding between two serious contenders stalled, and sold later by negotiation to an investor.

Developers were keen on the sprawling quarter-acre block, and the dual rental income appealed to investors.

With a clearance rate about 17 per cent higher than the city’s year-high of 83 per cent, there’s no doubt demand is strong. 

However, Domain Group’s senior economist Andrew Wilson stressed the statistic was based on a limited number of sales; 50 or less in each suburb.

“The more properties being offered in a particular suburb, the more that’s likely to bring down the clearance rate,” he said. 

Mount Waverley may have scored a less-than-perfect clearance of 91 per cent, but there were 112 sales over the past three months. 

Neighbouring Glen Waverley was next  with 108 sales and a clearance of 81 per cent.

Dr Wilson said Mount Waverley’s “spectacular” result suggested buyers were prepared to purchase even though there may be sellers with unrealistic expectations. 

Brendan Murphy, director at Barry Plant Wantirna, confirmed the office had registered a 100 per cent clearance rate this year.

He said many buyers looking in Wantirna and Wantirna South had been priced out of neighbouring suburbs. 

“Buyers have recognised that travelling that extra five minutes can potentially save them $500,000 for the same property in a different suburb, such as Glen Waverley or Mount Waverley,” he said. 

“We have seen that ripple effect of buyers just flowing in and there’s been huge demand.

“For the month of May we had eight sales over $1 million, and that is quite unheard of in our marketplace.”

Mr Murphy said most of their buyers, from the Whitehorse and Monash regions, often had a bigger budget than local buyers, who were struggling to upgrade in the same area. 

“They’re having to move further out, maybe to Ferntree Gully, Knoxfield or Bayswater to get that bigger house and still stay in the City of Knox,” he said. 

And with 20 per cent more auction listings compared with the same time last year, there is no indication the market is winding down.

Nigel O’Neil, chief executive at Hocking Stuart, which had 44 per cent more auction listings this May compared with 2014, said the number of people attending open for inspections was only picking up. 

He said high clearances and strong prices achieved in “swing suburbs” such as Ringwood had given home owners more confidence to take their properties to auction rather than sell privately. 

Across the regions, the outer east remains the top performer after recording a clearance of 88 per cent over autumn, followed by the inner south with 83.7 per cent and the inner east with 82.6 per cent.

Dr Wilson said the energy that had been driving the traditionally strong areas, including the inner east, outer east and south-east, over the past year was working its way through other regions. 

The winter auction market was going to be “particularly strong” with a rise in confidence and volume of auctions, he said.