Australian Clearance Rates, tempted to ignore

Clearance rates grew very noisy a few months ago. I switch to smoothed charts to combat this, but I've grown leery of bothering to post them due to increasing questions about the quality of the data. Here is the latest smoothed chart (smoothed over 4 months), just for the heck of it. Take it for what you will in lieu of the article below.

July 3 2011 Clearance Rates Melbourne Sydney Adelaide Brisbane

Agents withhold house price data

The investigation also revealed that 43 per cent of properties scheduled for auction in June had no published quote range, further frustrating buyers' attempts to obtain basic information. With Melbourne's clearance rate slumping over the past year - only about half the properties on offer are selling under the hammer - agents are increasingly refusing to disclose information about failed auctions. The passed-in price, vendor's reserve price or both were withheld for 20 per cent of all properties that were passed in last month.

I continue to be amazed at how little public information about properties is available online in Australia and Canada, in comparison to the U.S., where tax rolls, previous sales, and sometimes mortgage information, are just a few clicks away, for anyone to get, for free. Not that the added transparency prevented a bubble in the U.S., but for the due diligence buyer, the options for self-education are much better here.