City housing market retreats in first week of August

Shanghai's new housing market suffered a major retreat during the first week of August amid continuously slack new supply, the latest market data showed.

The total area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, fell 25.5 percent week over week to around 174,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a regular report issued on Monday.

Citywide, the Nanhui region of the Pudong New Area remained the most popular among home seekers for the second week, though weekly sales plunged to around 20,000 square meters from 49,000 square meters registered in the previous period. Jinshan District and Pudong followed closely, recording transactions of 19,000 square meters and 18,000 square meters, respectively, Centaline data showed.

"Withdrawal at the beginning of a month is quite normal and it's actually not bad to see the volume stay above the 150,000-square-meter mark," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior researcher. "As new supply remains lackluster at around 100,000 square meters, the market will probably maintain its current strength for another week or two."

About 91,000 square meters of new houses spanning three projects were released into the local market last week, a decline of 6.8 percent from the previous seven-day period.

The average new home cost, meanwhile, rose 15.6 percent week over week to 59,106 yuan (US$8,463) per square meter, mainly due to a structural shift toward high-end and luxury projects.

Notably, four developments with price tags of around 100,000 yuan per square meter or above made their way into the list of top-10 projects, compared with one registered in the previous week.

Topping the list, however, were two projects in suburban Jinshan and Nanhui, both costing less than 30,000 yuan per square meter. The project in Jinshan sold 13,958 square meters, or 131 units, while the other one in Nanhui unloaded 8,678 square meters, or 94 apartments, according to Centaline data.