A mixed property market in Sydney last year saw many buyers missing out on their chance of a home during 2015. However, a decline in auction clearance rates in 2016 are set to improve buying conditions in Sydney and on the Brisbane property market.
Australia's capital cities saw an 11.3 per cent decline in auction clearance rates from September to December of last year, according to data from CoreLogic RP Data and reported by Realestate.com.au.
Usually the property market experiences an uplift in the latter end of the year, however the data firm did record a 15 per cent rise in auctions in December.
Speaking on the behaviour of the auction market, head of research at CoreLogic RP Data, Tim Lawless said: "Much of the overall weakness across the auction market can be attributed to the weakening performance across Sydney's auction market, where the clearance rate averaged 59.8 per cent over the quarter compared with a more resilient result of 67.8 per cent in Melbourne."
He continued that clearance rates should be expected to track down over the first quarter of this year and that "there's simply less urgency in the market than we've seen in recent years", which is excellent news for buyers who are looking for a good deal when purchasing property.
This is because there are more houses for buyers to choose from and overall, less competition between buyers on the market. However, it is Brisbane that looks like the best place to buy property in 2016, according to Mr Lawless.
He bases his opinion on the fact that Brisbane "hasn't had the same rate of growth as Sydney and Melbourne since 2009", making it likely that the market is ready to heat up this year.
Mr Lawless expects that other property market areas in Australia like Adelaide will hold firm, meanwhile Perth will level out overall after it experiences a small dip, making it all the more likely that the best money to be made and saved in the early half of 2016 is in Brisbane.
