Chongming District ahead in new home sales as holiday approaches

New home purchases fell notably in Shanghai last week as the week-long Spring Festival holiday is just around the corner.

The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, plunged 37.5 percent from the previous seven-day period to 127,000 square meters, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report released today.

Citywide, the remote Chongming District emerged as the best performer with almost tripled transaction mainly boosted by abundant supply. Around 37,000 square meters of new homes were sold in the island district, a week-over-week surge of 184.6 percent. It was most closely trailed by Nanhui in Pudong New Area where new home sales hit some 18,000 square meters.

The average cost of new homes climbed 2.9 percent from the previous week to 40,322 yuan (US$6,383) per square meter, according to Centaline data.

"The clock is ticking down as the lunar new year holiday is falling in less than two weeks," said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline. "Sentiment among both buyers and real estate developers will continue to cool down probably through the end of this month."

A newly launched residential development in Chongming's Changxing Island unloaded 299 apartments, or 30,291 square meters of new homes in total, during the seven-day period ended Sunday. The most sought-after project of the week cost about 27,562 yuan per square meter.

Out of the 10 best-selling projects, four had a price tag of less than 30,000 yuan per square meter and two sold for more than 50,000 yuan per square meter, according to Centaline.

On the supply side, about 79,000 square meters of new homes spanning three projects in Chongming, Qingpu and Jiading, were released to the local market last week, an increase of 29.6 percent from the previous week.