Shanghai new home sales surge in latest week

New home sales in Shanghai stayed above the 100,000-square-meter barrier for the second week while new supply reached a year-to-date high, the latest market data show.

The total area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-funded affordable housing, rose 26.1 percent week over week to around 128,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a regular weekly report released on Monday.

Across the city, the suburban Baoshan District outperformed all with weekly transactions of 26,000 square meters, mainly boosted by projects newly launched into the market. Songjiang District and the Nanhui region of the Pudong New Area followed most closely with seven-day sales both hovering around 14,000 square meters, up 7.7 percent and 25.4 percent from the previous week, respectively.

These new homes sold for an average price of 57,679 yuan (US$8,133) per square meter, a week-over-week decrease of 3.1 percent, according to Centaline data.

"Sentiment among both home buyers and developers continued to rebound last week as the property market gradually picked up its strength as more work and production resumed around the city," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior researcher. "Notably, more medium to low-end projects have been released and received warm responses from the market."

Dwarfing all in sales last week was a development in Baoshan which sold 18,242 square meters, or 145 apartments, for an average price of 57,333 yuan per square meter. A Greenland project in Dongjiadu, Huangpu District, which was among the bestselling ones for a couple of weeks, maintained its second spot for another week after unloading 4,108 square meters, or 22 units, for an average cost of 134,865 yuan per square meter.

By price point, three of the 10 bestselling projects cost more than 100,000 yuan per square meter while six of them sold for between 30,000 yuan and 50,000 yuan per square meter.

On the supply side, some 160,000 square meters of new homes, spanning six projects, were launched into the local market, the highest weekly volume registered so far this year. That compared with 3,078 square meters released during the previous seven-day period, according to Centaline data.

"New home sales are highly likely to exceed 150,000 square meters this week as more new properties have been rolled into the market," Lu predicted.