Shanghai home market cools during holiday

Sentiment among home buyers and real estate developers eased last week, partly due to the National Day holiday, the latest market data shows.

The total area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-funded affordable housing, fell 16.8 percent week over week to 184,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a regular report issued on Monday.

Citywide, the Pudong New Area and Nanhui, formerly a district and now part of Pudong, led others with each unloading around 32,000 square meters of new homes, mainly buoyed by ample supply in previous weeks. Outlying Songjiang District followed most closely with a weekly transaction of about 16,000 square meters.

The average new home price, meanwhile, rebounded to 58,106 yuan (US$8,630) per square meter as a result of a structural shift toward higher-end properties, a week-over-week increase of 21.3 percent, according to Centaline data.

"It's within our expectations that sales dropped during the National Day holiday, which is sort of a routine," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior researcher. "However, overall momentum was still quite strong in general."

A development in Nanhui dwarfed all after selling 20,786 square meters, or 255 apartments, for an average price of 23,370 yuan per square. It was immediately trailed by a project in Pudong which unloaded 12,530 square meters, or 160 units of new homes, at an average price of 24,096 yuan per square meter.

Two of the top 10 projects cost around 100,000 yuan per square meter or above, while half of them sold for less than 50,000 yuan per square meter.

On the supply side, only some 15,000 square meters of new residential properties spanning two projects were released into the local market, according to Centaline data.