Shanghai's home market warms up last week
New home buying sentiment continued to recover in Shanghai last week with medium to low-end products in remote areas remaining the most popular type.
The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, rose 31.5 percent from the previous week to about 94,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending on Sunday, according to a report released today by Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co.
The outlying Fengxian District replaced Jiading District to become the most sought-after area across the city with weekly transaction hitting 33,000 square meters. Jiading followed with some 20,000 square meters of sales, a week-on-week increase of 25 percent. All districts in downtown Shanghai except Hongkou registered transaction last week, the latest sign for ever improving momentum among home buyers after the weeklong Spring Festival holiday.
"We expect the market to see a notable rebound in sales in the second half of this month when new home supply may witness a notable rise," said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline. "We've noticed that some large developers finally decided to launch their products, particularly in the medium-end segment, at lower-than-expected prices to boost sales as tightening policies remain unchanged."
The average cost of the new homes fell 4.3 percent week on week to 42,525 yuan (US$6,710) per square meter, amid rather robust sales recorded in projects falling into the price range of between 30,000 yuan and 40,000 yuan per square meter, Centaline data showed.
Half of the 10 most popular developments fell in that category and only one project in the top 10 list cost more than 50,000 yuan per square meter.
A COFCO development in Fengxian emerged as the best-selling project of the week after unloading 28,756 square meters, or 275 units, of new homes at an average price of 36,627 yuan per square meter.
On the supply side, some 55,000 square meters of new homes spanning two projects were released into the market last week, a weekly drop of 26.2 percent, according to Centaline data.
One of them, a China Vanke Co development in Xujin, Qingpu District, launched more than 30,600 square meters of new apartments in one batch with prices ranging between 53,400 yuan and 63,300 yuan per square meter.