Owner-occupied home sales rebound rapidly in June

Sales of previously-owned homes registered a rapid recovery in Shanghai in June with demand mainly arising from budget-tight first-time buyers.

About 16,000 lived-in homes, valued at a total of around 48.1 billion yuan (US$7.2 billion), changed hands across the city last month, sharply rebounding from 279 units in May but a year-on-year drop of 43 percent by volume and 48 percent by value, according to the latest data from Shanghai Homelink Real Estate Agency Co.

"The June figure was almost equivalent to the average monthly level seen before the latest resurgence of the COVID-19 outbreak which had seriously impacted the city's housing market with the two-month lockdown through May," said Yang Yulei, a senior analyst with Homelink.

"Week by week, transaction volume climbed steadily and we saw no signs of overheating after prospective buyers had been forced to sit on the sideline for more than two months."

The average cost of an existing home stood at 3.07 million yuan in June, a dip of 4 percent from May and a decrease of 9 percent from the same period a year earlier.

That was largely due to the robust demand from buyers who had a rather tight budget, Homelink said.

Optimism seemed to prevail among some sellers, indicated by increased asking prices, Homelink said, without elaborating how much the increase was.

The Pudong New Area, Baoshan and Minhang were the most sought-after districts in June, while Nanqiao in Fengxian, the core area of Jiading and Zhoukang in Pudong emerged as the most favorable choices among home seekers, Homelink data showed.

For the first half of 2022, some 57,000 units of lived-in homes valued at 176.7 billion yuan were sold around the city, a plunge of 68 percent and 71 percent, respectively, from same period a year ago.

On average, existing homes sold for 3.11 million yuan per unit during the first six months, a decrease of 7 percent from the previous year.