Usain Bolt in Sydney Photo: BridgeClimb Sydney via Getty Images

After a seasonal lull at the beginning of the year, Australia’s property auction market sprang back to life last week with more than 2,000 homes going under the hammer.

And while there were more properties up for sale, it was a familiar story on how each individual market performed.

Sydney’s market remains red hot, leading continued strong gains in Australia’s other southeastern capitals.

“There were 2,280 dwellings taken to auction this week, significantly increasing from 1,591 over the previous week, with 77.0% of auctions reported as successful,” said CoreLogic.

“The larger number of auctions was driven by a substantial rise across the Sydney and Melbourne markets, while the number of auctions held actually saw a decrease across the smaller capital cities over the week.”

This table from CoreLogic shows the performance of each capital city market last week. Sydney, again, recorded the strongest preliminary auction clearance rate at 83.5%, beating out Canberra and Melbourne for top spot during the week.

Source: CoreLogic

From a national perspective, auction volumes were down slightly from the levels reported in the same corresponding week in 2016, contributing to the higher clearance rate.

And, as seen in the table below from CoreLogic, the strength in Sydney’s auction market continued to feed through to higher prices being paid.

Last week alone, CoreLogic said prices in the city increased by a further 0.6%, leaving the gain over the past month at an uncomfortably high 2.6%.

From a year earlier, the median dwelling price in Sydney has now soared by 17.4%.

After accepting an advisory role to the New South Wales government last week to tackle housing affordability in the state, it’s clear that former Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens will have his work cut out if recent form is anything to go by.

Of the other mainland state capitals, CoreLogic said prices rose by 0.3% and 0.2% respectively in Melbourne and Brisbane while those in Adelaide and Perth fell, according to its

In weighted terms, prices rose by 0.3% across the nation’s capitals over the week, thanks largely to the gains reported in Sydney and Melbourne, the largest markets in the country.

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