Last Saturday saw an estimated 200 people attend a Toop&Toop auction at 26 Lindon Avenue, Hazelwood Park.

The eastern-suburbs home sold for $1.59million – more than 20 per cent above the vendor’s reserve price.

Toop&Toop’s Director of Sales Bronte Manuel said the four-bedroom home had 18 “competitive” registered bidders.

“We were quoting $1.25million but, the owners were more than happy with anything over $1.2 million,” Manuel said.

“That’s a huge difference and I shouldn’t say it’s normal but, now [agents] just think ‘oh, I just had another one go crazy’.”

Manuel said the long weekend left Toop&Toop auctions unscathed as homebuyers seem to be driven by the fear of missing out on their dream home.

“We had most of our opens and auctions on Saturday and the numbers were massive,” Manuel said.

“Buyers will now put their weekend on hold to go to an open, whereas six months ago, they would have gone away and then asked the agent to come through next weekend.

“But, now they’re fearful that there won’t be a next weekend.”

Last week marks the state’s fifth consecutive week of an auction clearance rate above 80 per cent, giving Adelaide a clearance rate average of 83.1 per cent.

These figures put South Australia in the lead of the smaller capital city markets, followed by Canberra (82 per cent), Brisbane (67 per cent) and Perth (56 per cent).

CoreLogic’s Head of Residential Research Eliza Owen said Adelaide’s clearance rate is at a significant height compared to previous years.

“These are the highest clearance rates we’ve seen across the city in years,” Owen said.

“At the start of 2020, before the onset of the pandemic, we saw that the average final clearance rate was sitting at just 56 per cent,” Owen said.

“In the same period of 2019, the clearance rate was under 50 per cent.”

Although Owen said auction volumes aren’t too dissimilar to previous years, buyers are more willing to purchase in an auction, resulting in greater clearance levels.

“The Adelaide auction market, it’s historically not been a traditional auction market in terms of having relatively low volumes and not being a popular method of sale,” Owen said.

“It seems to me that the auction method, people – both buyers and sellers – are becoming more comfortable with it.”

As Adelaide property prices continue to surge and buyers race to secure properties, housing stock levels are 35 per cent lower than in previous years.

Manuel said much of the state-wide auction success comes from the visual representation of the market boom they provide.

“The agents have been given more confidence to run more properties to auction which is also giving people more of a visual appearance as to what’s happening in the market,” Manuel said.

“It’s self-perpetuating and then creating more momentum.”

The week leading into the long weekend saw 98 total auctions state-wide compared to 65 at the same time last year.