Shanghai home sales surge 22 percent in latest week

Buying momentum among home seekers in Shanghai continued to build in the last week of May as expected, despite a drop in new supply, the latest market data showed.

The total area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, rose 22 percent week over week to around 261,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a regular report released on Monday.

Around the city, western Qingpu remained the most sought-after district for another week despite a moderate retreat of 8.6 percent to around 32,000 square meters. The suburban Baoshan District followed most closely with an almost similar volume. The Nanhui region of the Pudong New Area ranked third with weekly sales totaling 28,000 square meters.

The average price of new homes, meanwhile, edged up 4.3 percent week over week to 59,040 yuan (US$8,283) per square meter.

"The return of luxury developments to the bestselling list helped push up the weekly average price to a normal level of around 60,000 yuan per square meter," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior researcher. "As the plum rain season is just around the corner, we expect to see a decline in transaction volume possibly during the first two weeks of June."

Citywide, a project in downtown Putuo District with an average price of 94,623 yuan per square meter dwarfed all after selling 8,768 square meters, or 90 units, during the seven-day period. A development in outlying Jinshan District trailed immediately after unloading 7,377 square meters, or 74 apartments, for an average price of 24,433 yuan per square meter.

In the top 10 list by sales volume, two projects ranked above the 100,000-yuan-per-square-meter mark and six cost less than 50,000 yuan per square meter.

On the supply side, some 115,000 square meters of new homes were released into the local market, a week-over-week drop of 17.6 percent, according to Centaline data.