Shanghai home sales hit weekly year-to-date high

New home sales jumped to a year-to-date high in Shanghai last week amid robust performance in the medium- to low-end segment, according to the latest market data.

The total area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, rose 16.1 percent week over week to 303,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a regular report issued on Monday.

Citywide, suburban Nanhui, formerly a district and now part of the Pudong New Area, remained the most popular area after selling some 62,000 square meters of new homes, a week-over-week rise of 37.8 percent. Pudong followed again by unloading 54,000 square meters, a notable increase from 35,000 square meters registered a week earlier. Outlying districts such as Songjiang, Minhang, Baoshan and Jiading all managed to stay above the 20,000-square-meter mark, according to Centaline data.

"The month-end effect played out again as expected, mainly boosted by abundant new supply particularly in the medium- to low-end sector," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior researcher. "As we could see, half of the projects on the top 10 list managed to sell more than 100 units and that was quite rare in the local market."

The average new home price, meanwhile, fell 10 percent week over week to 46,759 yuan (US$6,841) per square meter, with eight projects on the list costing less than 50,000 yuan per square meter.

A development in Nanhui remained the most popular among home buyers for the second week after selling 35,427 square meters, or 396 apartments, for an average price of 21,644 yuan per square. It was most closely followed by a project in Pudong which unloaded 25,638 square meters, or 270 units, at an average cost of 64,118 yuan per square meter, making it the most costly project on the top 10 list.

On the supply side, about 243,000 square meters of new residential properties spanning four projects were released into the local market, a drop of 29 percent from the previous week but still a high volume in absolute terms, according to Centaline data.

Looking forward, market sentiment might ease in the first half of October mainly due to an eight-day National Day holiday as well as robust sales registered over the past few weeks, Lu predicted.