Australia witnessed a substantial drop in auction volume last weekend as potential sellers and buyers join the Spring Race Carnival festivities in Melbourne, according to the latest report from CoreLogic.

The total number of homes that went under the hammer across capital cities declined to 1,535, down from 2,622. The overall preliminary clearance rate, however, remained stable at 73.6%.

The decline was due to the less-active Melbourne market, which took a hit from the Spring Racing Carnival. Over the weekend, only 254 auctions happened in the city, which returned a clearance rate of 73.3%. Melbourne just came off the back of its busiest week for auctions this year, with volume hitting 1,528 homes.

Also read: Busiest week yet for auctions?

Given the lacklustre auction market in Melbourne, Sydney rose the strongest in terms of activity and success rate. There were 832 auctions held across the New South Wales capital over the weekend, up from last week's 771 and higher than last year's 813.

Sydney's clearance rate stood at 79.4%, up from the previous week’s final clearance rate of 74.3%.

Canberra registered the third-highest clearance rate at 74.6% as volume doubled across the city. Adelaide followed with 64.9% of auctions returning a successful result.

Check out the table below to see how each capital city auction market performed: