Property auctions across Australia's major cities hit their worst result in more than six years this week. Just 47.4 per cent of properties that went to auction sold in the week to 21 June 2026, according to Cotality.

That's the lowest the market has been since the early days of COVID in 2020. The week before wasn't much better — 48.3 per cent across roughly 2,000 auctions.

What "clearance rate" actually means

When a property goes to auction, one of three things happens: it sells, it gets passed in (the seller rejects all bids), or the seller withdraws it from auction. A clearance rate just tells you what percentage sold. When it drops below 50 per cent, that means more than half the properties didn't find a buyer at the price the seller wanted.

The picture this paints

Two weeks running in the high 40s isn't a wobble. It suggests something real has changed: there are still people at auctions, but they're not willing to bid at the prices sellers are asking. At roughly 2,000 auctions a week, that's a lot of properties either going back on the market, getting quietly renegotiated, or disappearing from sale altogether. None of those are good for people trying to sell.

The COVID comparison matters because back in 2020, clearance rates tanked because lockdowns shut down inspections and auctions physically couldn't happen. Buyers weren't able to show up. This time, they're showing up — they're just not bidding. That's a demand problem, not a supply one, and it tells you something about how many people are actually willing to pay what's being asked.

What to watch next

The numbers Cotality is reporting today are preliminary. When the final count comes in, that 47.4 per cent figure often ticks down a couple of points once all the passed-in and withdrawn results are tallied. So this could go lower.

For people reading the market closely — agents, investors, anyone thinking about selling — the next things to look for are how many sellers are dropping their asking prices, how long houses are sitting on the market, and whether more people are opting for private sale over auction. Those will tell you whether this is just a brief pause or the start of a longer shift in how the market works.