"What an amazing coincidence that there was a 57% clearance rate in both Sydney and Melbourne today."
you need to look at the numbers more closely. A clearance rate plus volume sold and total dollar value sold(per sale even) will complete the picture. I would say volume (and houses up for auction) has probably dropped significantly so only those with a good chance of an auction sale are going down that expensive path
so my hunch is total sales(volume) are down, houses up for auction are down, price per property sold is up (good houses only) and clearance rates are hence rising
