Brisbane sellers keep choosing auction as bookings rise 15 per cent

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Kooky

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Brisbane sellers booked more auctions in the second week of June than in the same week of 2025, even after the city's weakest clearance rate in six years. Cotality's preliminary figures, released on Monday 15 June, show 144 auctions held in the week ending 14 June and an early clearance rate of 42.0 per cent.

The rate is up from 31.9 per cent at the same stage a week earlier. Cotality calls it a substantial improvement, and also notes it is the fourth week running in which Brisbane's early clearance rate has sat below 50 per cent.

Volume up on last week and on last year

Cotality counts auctions twice in a week. On Thursday it publishes how many are scheduled. On Monday it reports how many were held. Both numbers were higher than a year earlier.

In its preview, Cotality described Brisbane's 15.0 per cent increase as the largest year-on-year rise in volume across the capital cities. That is notable in a month when the national market is running close to last year's level: the combined capitals had 2,192 auctions scheduled, almost unchanged from the 2,183 held in the equivalent week of 2025. By Monday's count, 2,124 had gone ahead, which is 2.7 per cent under last year.

The other large markets moved the opposite way to Brisbane over the year. Sydney's 797 auctions were 3.9 per cent fewer than in the same week of 2025 and Adelaide's 110 were 9.1 per cent fewer. Canberra, with 79, was 2.6 per cent ahead.

The contrast with the week before is sharp. In the first week of June, Brisbane's volume dropped by almost a third and its final clearance rate fell to 34.1 per cent, with 56.3 per cent of auctions passed in. Sellers who had campaigns under way did not respond by cancelling in large numbers. Bookings rose again.

The national rebound was of a different kind. Capital city volume rose 80.8 per cent in a week, Cotality says, because most states were returning from the King's Birthday long weekend. Melbourne more than doubled to 980 auctions and Sydney rose 64.3 per cent. Queensland had no holiday to bounce back from, so Brisbane's 6.7 per cent is a plain week-to-week change.

The rise needs its own caveat. A count of 144 is higher than a year ago and higher than last week, but it is well below the level of late May, when Cotality's early counts showed 194 Brisbane auctions in the week ending 24 May and 201 in the week ending 31 May. Auction numbers normally thin out as winter begins, so a lower June figure is expected. What the year-on-year comparison adds is that this June is busier than the last one, even though the results on the day are far weaker.

The gap between the two rows of the table is small and ordinary. Two fewer auctions were held than were scheduled on Thursday, and the percentage changes shrink accordingly. Both rows are measured against the previous week's final count of 135, and both imply about 127 Brisbane auctions in the same week of 2025.

A better early rate, still under half

Of the 144 Brisbane auctions, Cotality had collected 112 results by Monday. Forty-seven were sales and 65 were not, which gives the 42.0 per cent rate.

Set against the three weeks before it, the reading recovers most of the ground lost at the start of June without returning to the level of late May.

The line shows why four weeks under 50 per cent is the fact Cotality chose to underline. The 45.7 per cent of late May was already, in the firm's words at the time, Brisbane's lowest early result since April 2023. Nothing since has matched it.

The reporting share was higher than usual, which gives this reading a little more weight. Cotality had results for 78 per cent of Brisbane's auctions, against 68 per cent at the same point a week earlier.

How Brisbane compares with the other capitals

The early rate remains well short of the national figure. The combined capitals' preliminary clearance rate was 54.0 per cent, from 851 sales among 1,577 results. It is the third week in a row under 55 per cent, and Cotality notes that nine of the past eleven weeks have produced an early rate below 60 per cent.

Melbourne, the busiest market, recorded 57.6 per cent, up from 52.3 per cent. Sydney recorded 52.8 per cent, almost unchanged from 52.9 per cent and described by Cotality as its third lowest early result of the year. Adelaide slipped to 56.6 per cent from 64.2 per cent, which the firm says is that city's lowest preliminary figure since June 2025. Canberra came in at 45.6 per cent from 57 results.

Brisbane is therefore 12 points under the combined figure and the lowest of the five capitals with a published rate. Perth, with 13 auctions and seven results, had too few for one.

The Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast

Results outside the capital were softer than Brisbane's. The Gold Coast held 55 auctions, five more than the week before. Of the 38 results collected, 14 were sales, an early clearance rate of 36.8 per cent, against 33.3 per cent a week earlier.

The Sunshine Coast held 26 auctions and recorded 38.5 per cent, from five sales among 13 results. Half of its auctions had not reported, so the figure is provisional even by the standards of a Monday count, and a single sale moves it by more than seven points.

Together the two coasts held 81 auctions, a little over half of Brisbane's number. Their final results for the previous week, published on 11 June, were 32.0 per cent on the Gold Coast and 43.5 per cent on the Sunshine Coast.

What sellers appear to be weighing

A rising auction count beside a low clearance rate can look contradictory. It is less so on the ground. An auction campaign sets a date and gathers buyers in one place. When it does not produce a sale on the day, it often leads to a negotiation with the highest bidder in the days that follow. Cotality's method counts a home sold before or after the auction as sold, so part of that activity appears in the final rate.

Queensland's rules leave the seller in control of that outcome. The state government's guidance for sellers says an owner can set a reserve price, is not obliged to sell if bidding stops short of it, and may then negotiate with interested bidders. It also notes that going to auction without a reserve means accepting the highest bid, and that an agent must warn a seller in writing who chooses to do so. An agent can prepare a comparative market analysis based on at least three similar properties sold within five kilometres in the past six months, which is the usual starting point for the reserve.

A seller who books an auction in a soft market is therefore not committing to sell at any price. They are committing to a date, to a public test of demand and, if needed, to a negotiation afterwards.

The figures do not say why individual sellers chose auction, and the rate carries no information about prices. They do show that in mid-June more Brisbane owners were willing to put a date on their sale than a year earlier, in a market where fewer than half of reported auctions were ending in a sale.

Buyers' mood, as measured a week earlier, was cautious. The Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment survey released on 9 June put its headline index at 80.6, down 2.9 per cent in the month, and its house price expectations index 14.9 per cent lower. In Queensland the price expectations measure fell 15 per cent to 141. The same survey's "time to buy a dwelling" index rose 12.6 per cent to 81.1, a sign that some households read softer prices as an opening. Sellers setting a reserve this month are doing so against that mix of views.

What is scheduled next

Cotality expects around 1,950 capital city homes to go to auction this week and about 1,780 the week after, the usual easing as winter sets in. The final clearance rates for the week ending 14 June are due on Thursday 18 June.

One other date sits in the week. The Reserve Bank of Australia's published schedule shows its Monetary Policy Board meeting on 15 and 16 June, its first since the cash rate target was raised to 4.35 per cent on 5 May.

Kooky, from Shaka

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

About Kooky and Shaka →