National Clearance Rate Revels In Face Of Restrictions
Despite lending restrictions announced by APRA, the auction market continues to perform.
Despite lending restrictions announced by APRA, the auction market continues to perform.
National auction markets produced further strong results on Saturday despite the introduction of loan restriction from the financial regulator, APRA.
It comes as national auction numbers soar at the weekend, following last weekend’s holiday in most states. Melbourne was also bolstered by a sharp revival in listings following the recent easing of local covid restrictions on property inspections.
A total of 1858 homes went under the hammer national compared to the 254 auctions reported the previous Saturday – well ahead of the 948 listed this time last year. Of the properties auctions at the weekend, the national clearance rate recorded 86.1% – similar to the previous weekend’s 86.5%.
Sydney market continues to surge relentlessly recording an astonishing clearance rate at 86.6% at the weekend, just bellowed the previous weekend’s 87.1%. It is the 10th consecutive weekend the NSW capital has recorded clearance rates above 80% and six straight weekends above 85%.
In line with national trends, Sydney saw a rise in home’s listed, up to 611 homes compared to Saturday’s 455.
Further, Sydney recorded a median price of $1,712,500 for houses sold at auction at the weekend which was lower than the $1,870,000 reported over the previous Saturday but 22.3% higher than the $1,400,000 recorded over the same weekend last year.
Melbourne’s recent easing of property restrictions has seen a boost to the local housing market.
A wave of 932 homes were listed for auction at the weekend – significantly more than the 571 reported over the previous weekend and well ahead of the 57 auctions over the same weekend last year.
The boost in numbers saw the clearance fall to 76.6% – well below the previous weekend’s 80.1%.
Further, the easing of restrictions saw the auction withdrawal rate down to 12.9%, well below the rates seen through September which were well into the 20%.
Melbourne recorded a median price of $1,060,000 for houses sold at auction at the weekend which was slightly lower than the $1,100,000 recorded over the previous weekend but significantly higher than the $746,500 recorded over the same weekend last year
There is no end in sight to current weekend auction market results, although APRA has announced lending restrictions, this may only act to fuel runaway activity, bringing forward buyer demand.
Data powered by Dr Andrew Wilson, My Housing Market.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
A new AI-driven account by leading landscape architect Jon Hazelwood pushes the boundaries on the role of ‘complex nature’ in the future of our cities
Drifts of ground cover plants and wildflowers along the steps of the Sydney Opera House, traffic obscured by meadow-like planting and kangaroos pausing on city streets.
This is the way our cities could be, as imagined by landscape architect Jon Hazelwood, principal at multi-disciplinary architectural firm Hassell. He has been exploring the possibilities of rewilding urban spaces using AI for his Instagram account, Naturopolis_ai with visually arresting outcomes.
“It took me a few weeks to get interesting results,” he said. “I really like the ephemeral nature of the images — you will never see it again and none of those plants are real.
“The AI engine makes an approximation of a grevillea.”
Hazelwood chose some of the most iconic locations in Australia, including the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, as well as international cities such as Paris and London, to demonstrate the impact of untamed green spaces on streetscapes, plazas and public space.
He said he hopes to provoke a conversation about the artificial separation between our cities and the broader environment, exploring ways to break down the barriers and promote biodiversity.
“A lot of the planning (for public spaces) is very limited,” Hazelwood said. “There are 110,000 species of plants in Australia and we probably use about 12 in our (public) planting schemes.
“Often it’s for practical reasons because they’re tough and drought tolerant — but it’s not the whole story.”
Hazelwood pointed to the work of UK landscape architect Prof Nigel Dunnett, who has championed wild garden design in urban spaces. He has drawn interest in recent years for his work transforming the brutalist apartment block at the Barbican in London into a meadow-like environment with diverse plantings of grasses and perennials.
Hazelwood said it is this kind of ‘complex nature’ that is required for cities to thrive into the future, but it can be hard to convince planners and developers of the benefits.
“We have been doing a lot of work on how we get complex nature because complexity of species drives biodiversity,” he said.
“But when we try to propose the space the questions are: how are we going to maintain it? Where is the lawn?
“A lot of our work is demonstrating you can get those things and still provide a complex environment.”
At the moment, Hassell together with the University of Melbourne is trialling options at the Hills Showground Metro Station in Sydney, where the remaining ground level planting has been replaced with more than 100 different species of plants and flowers to encourage diversity without the need for regular maintenance. But more needs to be done, Hazelwood said.
“It needs bottom-up change,” he said. ““There is work being done at government level around nature positive cities, but equally there needs to be changes in the range of plants that nurseries grow, and in the way our city landscapes are maintained and managed.”
And there’s no AI option for that.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’