Sydney’s red-hot property market will forge ahead with auctions and open homes this weekend, despite the rapidly evolving COVID outbreak, with only a hard lockdown likely to keep buyers away, agents report.

Auctions and open-home inspections will go ahead in Sydney this weekend, despite the restrictions. Photo: Peter Rae

NSW recorded another rise in cases on Thursday, with 11 new infections overnight. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian described it as “the scariest period” that NSW has gone through but held firm on her refusal to lock the city down.

Providing the current restrictions remain in place, in person property inspections and public auctions will go ahead as normal over the weekend but with more restrictions in place: home inspections and indoor auctions will adhere to the one person per four square metre rule, masks must be worn indoors and agents will be required to have a COVID-safe plan.

There are 934 auction scheduled to take place in Greater Sydney on Saturday, according to Domain figures, and auctioneer Damien Cooley said he was “slightly surprised” at how calm vendors across the city had remained going into the weekend.

Damien Cooley, of Cooley Auctions, says it’s business as usual this weekend, with vendors happy to press on and take their properties to auction. Photo: Peter Rae

“I think because we’ve been in a lockdown before, people understand that if we do get locked down or get more restrictions, the market will continue anyway. It is what it is,” he said.

“There’s no doubt some people are a bit nervous about should we go to auction or should we postpone but the overwhelming response is business as usual. If we can run the auction, we will run the auction and there’s always other options.”

Edward Brown, of Belle Property Bondi Junction, said he had not had a single vendor ask him to postpone their auction despite the area being at the centre of the current outbreak. He planned to go ahead with an open home at 12 Mill Hill Road.

12 Mill Hill Road, Bondi Junction NSW 2022 3Beds1Bath−

“It’s business as normal. No one has said let’s put pause on it and reassess — by this stage of the campaign you’ve already got your interested parties,” he said.

“Compared to the lockdown we had last year, this isn’t worrying people in the same way. Twelve months ago everyone was more worried about the state of the economy but today we know how resilient it is and how strong the property market is.”

The biggest concern, he said, was with tenants who were not comfortable with people inspecting their properties.

“Tenants are starting to push back on inspections, and that could have an impact on sale but I’m not seeing anything too dramatic,” he said.

David Lee, of NGFarah, is selling 45 Darley Road, Randwick, a sprawling five-bedroom Victorian residence, and said his owners were keen to plough ahead with the auction on Friday at 4pm.

45 Darley Road, Randwick NSW 2031 5Beds4Baths4Parking

“Given what we went through last year, which was a lot more severe nationally rather than an isolated incident, it hasn’t made any vendors fear what’s happening at the moment,” he said.

“Real buyers are still going to come out and inspect what they want to buy. I’d say the only difference we’re likely to see is a dilution of the inspection pool which will whittle the numbers down to genuine buyers in the marketplace.

“So, our inspection numbers will be down but that’s the only side effect I see from this right now.”

Brad Gillespie, of The Agency Eastern Suburbs, is taking 3 Morehead Street, Redfern, to auction at 10.15am and said everyone involved was prepared to go ahead.

“It feels like we’ve been here and done this before, we know what to do. All of my vendors have asked the question of what will we do if there’s a lockdown and the plan is we’ll move them online but unless that happens we will go ahead as normal,” he said.

By ELLEN LUTTON