Weekly new home sales climb 10 percent in Shanghai

New home sales in Shanghai rebounded moderately last week despite a retreat in new supply, the latest market data showed.

The total area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, rose 10.1 percent week over week to around 214,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a regular report released on Monday.

Around the city, western Qingpu District surpassed all with transaction volume surging 119 percent from the previous week to some 35,000 square meters. The suburban Nanhui region of the Pudong New Area followed most closely with about 29,000 square meters of new houses sold, a slight decrease from 30,000 square meters registered a week earlier. The outlying Songjiang District ranked third with weekly sales staying above the 20,000-square-meter mark.

The average price of new homes, meanwhile, continued to fall amid a structural shift, closing at 56,594 yuan (US$7,914) per square meter, a decrease of 4.5 percent from the previous week.

"Transaction volume is expected to remain at a rather high level for another week as we are approaching the end of the month, when real estate developers prefer to gear up to boost their monthly performance," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior researcher. 

"Notably, not a single project priced above the 100,000-yuan-per-square-meter mark was found in last week's best-selling list, which is rare for the last couple of months," Lu said.

Citywide, a project in Qingpu with an average price of 37,478 yuan per square meter outperformed all after selling 9,328 square meters, or 90 units, during the seven-day period. A development in Nanhui trailed immediately after selling 6,466 square meters, or 46 apartments, for an average price of 60,447 yuan per square meter. A luxury project in downtown Hongkou District, costing 96,782 yuan per square meter on average, grabbed the No.3 spot after unloading 5,359 square meters, or 42 units.

By price point, seven of the top 10 projects sold for less than 60,000 yuan per square meter, indicating strong demand from up-graders.

On the supply side, some 139,000 square meters of new homes, the majority located in remote areas, were released into the local market, a week-over-week drop of 18.2 percent, according to Centaline data.