THE spotlight may be on politics, but the property market hasn’t strayed far from the action after a record-breaking eight months.

According to the REIV, as of last week, 18,294 properties had been put up for auction in 2010 – the highest number recorded for that period of the year.

The year-to-date clearance rate is 76 per cent, with real estate transactions worth a record $18.8 billion, $5.3 billion more than at this time in 2009. This week there were 535 reported auctions and a clearance rate of 68 per cent.

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