Shanghai housing market records stellar weekly growth

Shanghai's new housing market witnessed a major rebound in sales last week with medium- to low-end properties gaining increased popularity among home buyers, the latest market data show.

The total area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, jumped 41.5 percent week over week to around 221,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a regular report issued on Monday.

Citywide, suburban Qingpu District remained the most sought-after area for another week with weekly sales totaling 27,000 square meters, an increase of 35 percent from the previous seven-day period. It was most closely trailed by Chongming and Jiading districts, which registered transaction of around 27,000 square meters and 24,000 square meters, respectively, Centaline data shows.

"Fuelled by abundant supply in previous weeks, overall buying momentum stayed strong last week, with five districts posting sales above the 20,000-square-meter threshold," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior researcher. "Meanwhile, two projects recorded sales of more than 100 units each, pretty rare for July which usually suffers the weakest performance of the year in terms of property sales."

The average new home cost fell 6.9 percent week over week to 51,546 yuan (US$7,347) per square meter, amid a shift toward apartments falling into more affordable price brackets.

For the second week in a row on the list of top 10 projects, none exceeded 90,000 yuan per square meter. And seven of them cost less than 50,000 yuan per square meter, two more than the previous week.

Topping all was a project in Chongming District, where some 18,800 square meters, or 195 units, of new homes were unloaded for an average price of 30,230 yuan per square meter. A development in the Pudong New Area, with a price tag of nearly 80,000 yuan per square meter, followed immediately with a weekly transaction of 10,887 square meters, or 65 units, while one project in Jiading District managed to sell over 9,500 square meters, or 105 units, for an average price of 41,400 yuan per square meter, Centaline data indicates.

On the supply side, only about 57,000 square meters of new houses spanning two projects were released into the local market last week, plummeting from the 195,000 square meters rolled out during the previous seven-day period.