Shanghai housing market heats up in August

Shanghai's new housing market ended on a strong note in August with robust sentiment among both home buyers and real estate developers.

By area, the amount of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, jumped 18.7 percent from a month earlier to 976,000 square meters, according to a regular monthly report released on Tuesday by Shanghai Centaline Property Consultancy Co.

"August's performance did beat market expectations with the second half recording extremely robust transactions, almost equivalent to the level usually seen during the high season," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior research manager. "Along with a surge in new supply, we are very upbeat on September sales."

The average price of a new home, meanwhile, stayed almost unchanged at 55,349 yuan (US$8,084) per square meter, a dip of 0.8 percent from July.

In the top 10 list by sales, seven projects cost less than 42,000 yuan per square meter with two selling for no more than 30,000 yuan per square meter.

Outperforming all were two developments in Minhang District, both bearing a price tag of over 60,000 yuan per square meter. A total of 615 apartments were unloaded at the two projects last month, Centaline data showed. One development in the Pudong New Area, which sold 138 apartments for an average price of more than 84,000 yuan per square meter, ranked  No. 7 on the list.

On the supply side, more than 1.05 million square meters of new housing covering all segments from luxury to low-end were launched into the local market last month, a spike of 162.7 percent from July and also the highest monthly figure since 2019, according to Centaline data.