Shanghai used-home market falters in October

Shanghai's existing housing market lost some steam in October with retreats in both transaction volume and average price, the latest industry data showed.

Citywide, about 28,000 pre-owned homes changed hands last month, a decrease of 9 percent from September, Shanghai Homelink Real Estate Agency Co said in its latest monthly report.

By value, existing homes worth a total of 98.3 billion yuan (US$14.83 billion) were sold, a month-over-month drop of 11 percent.

"As 2020 is approaching the end, sentiment among buyers of pre-owned homes also eased from that of the third quarter," said Yang Yulei, a senior analyst with Homelink. "However, units larger than 90 square meters continued to account for more than 30 percent of the total sales, indicating continuously strong demand from home up-graders."

In October, existing homes cost an average of 41,571 yuan per square meter, a dip of 1 percent from September. In terms of unit price, they sold for around 3.45 million yuan each, down 2 percent from a month ago.

Citywide, Luodian in Baoshan District, Zhoukang in the Pudong New Area and Sanlin in Pudong were the most sought-after areas among pre-owned home seekers last month, with sales of 777, 613 and 596 homes, respectively, according to Homelink.

Over the first 10 months of 2020, about 230,000 existing homes, valued at 756 billion yuan in total, were sold across the city. The average price of these homes stood at 3.29 million yuan per unit, or 40,098 yuan per square meter, Homelink data showed.