Pass-ins nearly double withdrawals as Brisbane clears 26 per cent

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Kooky

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The final count for the first week of spring is in, and it confirms the early reading. Cotality's finalised auction results for the week ending 6 September, published on Thursday 10 September, put Brisbane's clearance rate at 26.0 per cent across 131 auctions. That means 34 homes were recorded as sold and 97 were not. It was the weakest final result of any capital city that week.

The same release carries a detail that says more about the mood than the percentage does. Across the combined capitals, Cotality counted 480 homes that were passed in at auction against 245 that were withdrawn before auction day. Sellers are still turning up. What is missing, on the day, is a bid at or above the reserve.

Where the Queensland results settled

Cotality's summary lists the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast next to the capitals. Both finished the week with a higher share of sales than Brisbane, on far fewer auctions.

Brisbane's final rate came in slightly above the preliminary 24.8 per cent that Cotality published on Monday 7 September. That is the less common direction: final rates usually settle below the first count, because late results tend to include more unsold homes. A move of 1.2 percentage points on 131 auctions is small either way.

The week was also quieter than the one before. Cotality counted 146 Brisbane auctions in the week ending 30 August, so the 131 held in the first week of spring was a fall of 10.3 per cent. The final rate for that earlier week was 27.4 per cent, which makes this the second week in a row with a little over a quarter of Brisbane auctions selling.

What arrived between Monday and Thursday

Setting the two releases side by side shows what the late results contained. On Monday, Cotality had 101 Brisbane results, 25 of them sales, from a list of 133 auctions. By Thursday the list had been revised to 131 and every one was accounted for, with 34 sales. The 30 results that came in after the first count therefore held nine sales, a strike rate of 30 per cent, a little better than the early group's.

On the Gold Coast, the preliminary table held 15 sales among 38 results, a rate of 39.5 per cent. The final count of 19 sales from 49 auctions means the last 11 results included four sales, and the rate barely moved.

The Sunshine Coast is the clearest case of why small samples need care. On Monday, with five sales among nine results, Cotality published no rate for the region at all. The seven results that followed contained a single sale, and the final rate of 37.5 per cent is well below what the first nine results alone would have suggested.

The finalised figures are the firmer of the two sets. Cotality's finalised release is compiled once it has collected close to all of the week's results, which is why the Thursday table is the one used for comparisons across weeks and years.

Passed in, not pulled

Cotality counts two kinds of unsuccessful auction. A home is withdrawn when the seller cancels or postpones before the day. It is passed in when the auction goes ahead and bidding stops short of the reserve. Both count as unsold in the firm's clearance rate, which sets known sales against all known auction results.

In the week ending 6 September, the national split leaned heavily towards the second. The 480 pass-ins were almost double the 245 withdrawals. Put against the 1,431 auctions held, that is about 34 per cent passed in and about 17 per cent withdrawn. Cotality's reading is that the weak clearance rate has more to do with homes failing to sell under the hammer than with vendors stepping away beforehand, and that sellers' price expectations are still running ahead of what buyers will pay.

The lean was stronger than a week earlier. In the week ending 30 August, Cotality counted 448 pass-ins and 291 withdrawals among 1,462 capital city auctions, or 30.6 per cent and 19.9 per cent of the total. In one week the number of withdrawals fell by 46 while the number of pass-ins rose by 32, on a slightly smaller list.

Cotality publishes that split for the combined capitals, not for Brisbane alone, so it cannot be applied city by city with confidence. It does offer a fair description of the season so far: the auction is being held, the crowd is there, and the gap is one of price.

A pass-in is therefore not the end of a campaign. A home counted as unsold on auction day can still change hands in the days that follow, and a sale agreed after Cotality has closed its count is not in the clearance rate.

The other capitals, and last year

The combined capitals rate of 49.3 per cent was marginally below the 49.5 per cent of the week before. Cotality notes that the weighted average has held under 50 per cent for all but one of the past 11 weeks. A year earlier, in the equivalent week, it was 70.0 per cent, a gap of 20.7 points.

Volumes tell a similar story. The 1,431 auctions were 2.1 per cent fewer than the previous week's 1,462 and 32.6 per cent below the 2,122 held a year ago.

Among the individual cities, Melbourne finalised at 54.6 per cent from 656 auctions, up from 53.7 per cent, and Sydney at 52.5 per cent from 501, up from 51.5 per cent. Adelaide recorded what Cotality calls the steepest weekly decline among the larger capitals, from 46.1 per cent to 36.2 per cent across 94 auctions. Canberra eased from 40.0 per cent to 37.1 per cent as its list shrank from 50 auctions to 35, and in Perth four of 13 auctions sold.

Brisbane's 26.0 per cent sat about ten points under Adelaide's and more than 23 points under the combined figure.

Cotality's monthly Housing Chart Pack, also published on 10 September, places these weeks in a longer run. It reports that the four-week average clearance rate across the capitals stood at 49.5 per cent at the end of August and had been below 50 per cent since early June. The same publication puts the median vendor discount in the capital cities at 4.2 per cent, the highest since January 2023. That figure covers homes sold by private treaty, and it points the same way as the pass-in count: where sales are being made, sellers are giving more ground on price than they were a year ago.

More Brisbane auctions booked for the second week

Whatever the first week's result, Brisbane sellers have not pulled back from the method. Cotality's preview for the week ending 13 September lists 169 auctions scheduled in the city. That is 29.0 per cent more than the 131 just held.

Brisbane and Perth are the only two capitals with more auctions booked than in the same week of 2025, Cotality notes, and Perth's count is small enough that nine extra auctions produce the largest percentage in the table. Melbourne's fall of 45.5 per cent is the steepest of any capital. In total, 1,615 homes are scheduled, up 12.9 per cent on the week but 32.8 per cent below the 2,402 held a year earlier.

Further ahead, the firm expects about 1,900 capital city auctions in the week ending 20 September, easing to around 1,300 in the week ending 27 September, when the AFL Grand Final on Saturday 26 September quietens Melbourne. Preliminary results for the 169 Brisbane auctions are due on Monday 14 September.

A longer list in a week when one home in four is selling is a test of both sides. If the share of sales holds, the extra auctions will add to the number of homes passed in. If more reserves are met, the first week of spring will look like a slow start instead of a pattern.

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.

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