Strong finish for January

JANUARY ended on a high for Australia’s reinvigorated auction market, pointing to a stellar February to come.

The Ray White Group came out of an unusual first month of 2022 with a 71 per cent clearance rate after 983 auctions were scheduled. Average registered bidders remained at the highs of last year as six bidders registered and 3.3 actively bid on average. Some 78 per cent of the group’s auction buyers in January were locals, while 16 per cent were from interstate.This week, Ray White’s auction volume will continue to ramp up, with 554 properties scheduled to go under the hammer, this includes the 313 homes booked for auction on Saturday.Ray White Melbourne held onto its top place for auction volume with 104 scheduled, however the Ray White Sydney network is quickly closing the gap, scheduling 81 auctions.There’s no stopping the market in Brisbane where Ray White has 80 auctions booked this week and a further 57 for Ray White Adelaide.There are sure to be plenty of first home buyers on the auction beat this weekend. Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee said if you are a first home buyer, the best advice is to just get into the market and try not to time cycles.“Pretty much every suburb has risen in value over the past five years, however fundamentally owning a property puts you in a very different position at retirement than a renter,” Ms Conisbee said.“The best piece of financial advice is to pay off your credit cards, however, coming in close behind would be to buy a home.

“Over the long term, housing has become a major component of our wealth. In 1988, our homes made up just over a half of our total wealth. That has now increased to just over 63 per cent.”

Ms Conisbee said the pandemic has driven household wealth to record highs in 2021, reaching almost $14 billion.

“The biggest component of the increase has been the growth in home values. Household wealth has increased by nearly $3,000 billion while the value of our homes increased by $1,900 billion since the start of the pandemic,” she said.

“The remaining $1,100 billion increase was mainly from increases to our superannuation (up $628 billion) and deposits (up $225 billion).”