Weekly home sales tumble, luxury units lift average price

Weekly sales of new homes fell below the 200,000-square-meter mark in Shanghai for the first time in about a month with almost all areas of the city suffering retreats.

The total area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-funded affordable housing, dropped 37.3 percent week over week to around 190,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a regular report issued on Monday.

Minhang District, despite a week-over-week decline of 33.3 percent in transaction volume, outperformed all others with new home sales hitting some 32,000 square meters. Songjiang District came most closely, trailing by just 195 square meters. Pudong New Area, which came third last week, finished at 18,000 square meters.

The average new home price, meanwhile, rose 9.5 percent from the previous week to 60,117 yuan (US$9,097) per square meter, mainly boosted by one luxury development, according to Centaline data.

A project in downtown Huangpu District, which sold 2,197 square meters, or seven units, for an average price of 224,539 yuan per square meter, ranked No.8 in last week's top 10 list, therefore pushing up the citywide average price considerably.

Among the top 10 projects by sales, four cost less than 50,000 yuan per square meter. A project in Minhang, with a price tag of around 40,000 yuan per square meter, became the most sought-after development after unloading 17,603 square meters, or 176 units.

"It's within our expectations that sales fell in the beginning of a month," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior researcher. "But the fact that new supply had been rather weak over the past few weeks might indicate that weekly sales could possibly slip further, down to below 150,000 square meters in the coming week or the next."

Citywide, only 2,775 square meters, or 28 units, of new houses at one project in downtown Hongkou District were released into the market, compared to some 120,000 square meters during the previous seven-day period, according to Centaline data.