New home sales double after holiday sentiment fades

New home sales more than doubled in Shanghai last week as holiday sentiment faded away, the latest industry data showed.

The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-funded affordable housing, jumped 107.4 percent to about 117,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants said in a report released on Monday.

The Pudong New Area, where some 21,000 square meters of new housing was sold, a week-over-week drop of 19.2 percent, continued to be the most sought-after area. The outlying Fengxian District also performed quite well, with transaction surging 166.7 percent to about 16,000 square meters, according to Centaline data.

"Despite the rebound, the overall sentiment among home buyers was still pretty low as not a single project managed to register weekly sales exceeding 100 units," said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline. "However, as supply recovered as well, transaction volume might continue to improve over the next couple of weeks."

The average cost of a new home fell to 59,291 yuan (US$8,570) per square meter, a weekly decline of 15 percent, mainly due to a structural shift, according to Centaline data.

Half of the top 10 most sought-after projects cost no more than 50,000 yuan per square meter, and only one housing development with a price tag of more than 100,000 yuan per square meter, which sold 5,631 square meters, or 26 units, last week, managed to squeeze into the best-selling list.

An apartment project in Fengxian emerged as the most popular after unloading nearly 8,000 square meters, or 81 units, for an average price of 36,853 yuan per square meter, Centaline data showed.

On the supply side, some 152,000 square meters of new homes spanning six projects were released onto the local market last week, compared with zero supply during the previous seven-day session which was the National Day holiday.