Shanghai new home sales bounce back in March

New home sales more than tripled in Shanghai last month amid a slow recovery in new supply as the market began to bottom out.

By area, the amount of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, surged 227.8 percent from February to 377,000 square meters in March, according to a regular monthly report released on Wednesday by Shanghai Centaline Property Consultancy Co.

"With the coronavirus disease outbreak being gradually brought under control in China and more industries resuming operations, the city's property market is also getting back to normal despite a slow pace," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior research manager. "New supply finally came back to the market at the end of March after an absence of 10 consecutive weeks and that helped restore some confidence in the market."

The average price for a new home fell 5.3 percent from a month earlier to 56,952 yuan (US$8,019) per square meter.

For the second straight month, a Shui On Land project in downtown Hongkou District topped last month's bestseller list after unloading 14,404 square meters, or 100 apartments, for an average price of 108,750 yuan per square meter. Two medium to low-end developments in outlying Jiading District followed closely behind after selling 11,497 square meters and 11,167 square meters, respectively, for an average cost of 34,895 yuan and 31,416 yuan per square meter, according to Centaline data.

Notably, four other projects in the top 10 list bore a price tag of around 100,000 yuan per square meter and above, while the rest asked for between 40,000 yuan and 60,000 yuan per square meter.

On the supply side, about 43,000 square meters of new homes spanning two projects were launched into the market, all of them arriving during the last week of March. That compared with zero new supplies in February.

With more units expected to be rolled out to the market over the coming few weeks, new home sales for April could reach 600,000 square meters or above, according to Centaline's forecast.