New home sales in city hit a 3-year high

New home sales in Shanghai shot to a three-year high last week with six projects recording seven-day transactions of more than 100 units, the latest market data showed.

The total area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, jumped 45.8 percent week over week to around 430,000 square meters, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants said in a report issued on Monday.

The average price of new homes, meanwhile, climbed 4.9 percent from the previous week to 51,960 yuan (US$7,940) per square meter, with only one project priced close to 100,000 yuan per square meter squeezing into the top 10 list.

"Almost all districts across the city recorded strong sales with outlying areas performing extremely well," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior researcher. "Nine districts saw sales above the 10,000-square-meter threshold, mainly boosted by ample new supply."

Citywide, Baoshan District continued to lead the pack with weekly sales of 173,000 square meters, a surge of 198.3 percent from the previous seven-day period. It was closely followed by Songjiang and Qingpu districts, where some 50,000 square meters and 43,000 square meters of new houses were unloaded, respectively.

A project in Baoshan, which sold 60,632 square meters, or 578 units, of new homes at an average price of more than 64,300 yuan per square meter, emerged as the most popular development of the week.

Among the top 10 developments by sales, three were priced at more than 50,000 yuan per square meter, while the cheapest cost just over 37,000 yuan per square meter, according to Centaline data.

On the supply side, some 306,000 square meters of new housing came online in the local market last week, a week-over-week withdrawal of 30.1 percent but still much higher than the weekly average of around 140,000 square meters so far this year.

Lu expects to see transaction volume staying above the 400,000-square-meter mark for another week, with ample new supply coupled with the month-end effect leaving a positive impact on the market.