Tag Archives: auctions
Auctions set to continue as popular means of selling a home in Australia
While housing market conditions remain strong in Australian cities, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, auctions will continue to be a popular way of selling a residential property, new research suggests. Over the past financial year some 25.6% of all properties advertised for sale were taken to auction across Australia’s capital cities, with Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra showing more than one third of all listings being taken to auction, according to data from real estate firm CoreLogic. There were approximately 380,000 dwellings advertised for sale across Australia’s capital cities over the 2014/2015 financial year, of which roughly 84,000 or 26% were advertised as auction sales. The proportion of auction sales has broadly been rising since the 2008/2009 financial year when auctions comprised a much lower 16% of all dwellings listed for sale. According to CoreLogic RP Data research director Tim Lawless, the rise in the proportion of residential properties taken to auction should come as no surprise, considering how hot housing market conditions are in the auction centric cities of Melbourne and Sydney. ‘When market demand is high and buyers are highly competitive, the auction process is likely to provide the best possible price on a property transaction. The opposite is true when housing market conditions are weak, auctions aren’t as popular due to fact that there is less urgency amongst buyers and the competitive bidding environment isn’t likely to be as conducive to finding the best possible price on a home,’ he said. ‘Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra have a well-established auction culture with this sale method well accepted by vendors and buyers. The other capital cities still list the vast majority of homes for sale via private treaty,’ he added. The data confirms that across the capital cities, Melbourne is still the city where auctions are the most popular method of selling a home. Some 39% of all Melbourne's residential property listings over the past financial year were taken to auction, with Sydney and Canberra not far behind at 38% and 36% respectively. However, an examination of the proportion of listings taken to auction across product types, Canberra and Sydney are both showing a larger proportion of auction listings for houses than Melbourne. The remaining capital cities are all showing auctions to be a far less popular method for selling a home. Some 16% of Adelaide listings were taken to auction over the past financial year, while 11% were taken to auction in Brisbane and Darwin and less than 5% of listings in Perth and Hobart were auctions. It is generally the more expensive or unique dwellings in these cities that are taken to auction. ‘With auction clearance rates remaining in the high 70% range across Sydney and Melbourne, as well as values continuing to show a strong rate of appreciation, we can expect the high proportion of auction listings to remain in these cities,’ Lawless explained. Looking across the suburbs, there were five suburbs, all in Sydney, where more than 95% of… Continue reading
Gazumping falls overall in the UK residential property market
Despite a shortage of supply in the UK property market, the number of UK buyers being gazumped has dropped over the last 10 months, new research shows. The practice, where a buyer makes a higher offer for a house than someone whose offer has already been accepted by the seller and thus succeed in acquiring the property, has fallen by 40% since October 2014, according to a survey by online estate agent eMoov. A year ago some 22% of all home owners had been gazumped during their property purchase, however this has now reduced to 13%, particularly in Brighton which is no longer the gazumping hot spot with a fall of 68% in the practice. Gazumping is also down in London by 46% with just 17% of buyers in London having experienced gazumping first hand. The firm suggests that this could be because prices and demand have levelled out. Sheffield is named as the new gazumping capital of the UK. Some 29% of buyers in the city have been gazumped when looking to purchase a property, an increase of 25% over the last 10 months. The firm says that since December 2014, Sheffield has seen a steady increase in demand, up by 35% overall and this is almost certainly the main contributing factor to the increase in gazumping, as desperate buyers scramble to get a foot on the ladder by any means possible. Plymouth has also seen an increase in gazumping of 31% which coincides with a strong uplift in property demand in the area since the end of last year with growth of 27%. Newcastle is the only other UK city to see an increase in gazumping during this time frame, with 16% of buyers being gazumped, a rise of 12%. Other cities where gazumping is still more prevalent despite a drop are Birmingham at 17%, Leeds at 16%, Manchester at 15%, Nottingham and Bristol both at 12% and Brighton at 11%. At just 2%, Southampton had the lowest rate of gazumping in the UK. Continue reading
EU States Seen Agreeing on Carbon-Fix Stance by ‘Early Fall’
By Ewa Krukowska – Jun 4, 2013 European Union nations may reach a negotiating position on a draft fix for the EU carbon market by “early fall” should the bloc’s Parliament approve the stopgap plan next month, according to Lithuania . “If there’s a mandate from the plenary in July” at the Parliament, “then we’ll work to reach a qualified majority position on backloading pretty soon, by early fall,” said Arunas Vinciunas, Lithuania’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU. His country takes over the EU’s rotating presidency next month. EU governments and the Parliament are considering a change to the region’s emissions-trading law to enable temporary curbs on the supply of carbon permits. The amendment is the first element of the carbon-market rescue plan, known as backloading, which would help prices rebound from record lows. EU carbon allowances for delivery in December rose as much as 4.9 percent to a seven-week high of 4.11 euros a metric ton on London ’s ICE Futures Europe exchange today. The contract slumped to an all-time low of 2.46 euros in April on concerns policymakers may fail to tackle a record glut of permits aggravated by an economic crisis. The EU carbon program imposes pollution limits on about 12,000 manufacturing companies and utilities in the region, including Germany ’s largest utility EON SE and steelmaker ArcelorMittal. The system, in which caps were set before the economic crisis, doesn’t allow any price floors or ceilings. After the slowdown reduced industrial production and cut into demand for pollution rights, the surplus of permits rose to around 2 billion metric tons last year, a level almost matching the annual supply, according to EU estimates. Delayed Auctions The backloading plan, which would delay auctions of some carbon permits, has divided governments, members of Parliament and industry. It was proposed last year by the European Commission, the EU’s regulatory arm, and needs approval by governments and the Parliament to be enacted. The Parliament’s environment committee is scheduled to recommend next steps on the draft measure on June 19 before the whole assembly holds a second vote on it on July 2. In the first ballot on April 16, lawmakers declined to support backloading and sent it to the environment panel for further talks. Should the assembly endorse the market fix next month, EU governments will need to adopt a position on the draft measure for talks with representatives of the Parliament on the final wording of the proposal. A potential deal in such negotiations, which are also known as trilogue because they also involve the commission, must be formally approved by the ministers and the assembly before it becomes a law. Merkel Call “Optimistically, we could start the trilogue in October,” Vinciunas said. While most member states favor backloading, they are short of the 255 votes needed in the EU weighted-ballot system to approve the proposal because several nations, including Germany, remain undecided. Chancellor Angela Merkel said last month she hoped Germany would be able to tackle the plan soon after elections on Sept. 22. Spain , which doesn’t have an official position on backloading yet, aims to decide on whether to back the plan in two weeks, its state secretary for environment Federico Ramos said on May 29. Poland, Cyprus and Greece , which have a total of 43 votes, have said they won’t back the measure. To stop it, they would have to form a blocking minority of 91 votes. Lithuania’s “optimism” is a good sign, because it indicates that, in its role as the EU presidency, the country is willing to put pressure on member states to take official positions on backloading even before German elections, said Konrad Hanschmidt, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London. Lithuania will chair meetings of climate officials from national governments and gatherings of the EU Council of Ministers in the second half of next year. “Nonetheless, it will be a difficult task to establish an official Council position before a new German cabinet has been elected,” Hanschmidt said. “That in turn would delay a potential trilogue.” To contact the reporter on this story: Ewa Krukowska in Brussels at ekrukowska@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lars Paulsson at lpaulsson@bloomberg.net Continue reading
