A rebound in home-buying sentiment continued in Shanghai last week but the overall momentum in the market remained lackluster, latest industry data showed.
The area of new homes sold, excluding government-funded affordable housing, rose 10.3 percent to 180,000 square meters during the seven-day period ended on Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report released yesterday.
The outlying district of Jiading led other districts for another week when 35,000 square meters of homes were sold.
“Though sentiment improved for the second straight week and reached its year-to-date high again, momentum in general was still sluggish with month-to-date sales of around 540,000 square meters, a rather low figure for March which usually sees the first notable rebound in the year,” said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline.
Lu predicted weekly sales should continue to climb as new home supply is seen to rise over the next couple of weeks.
The average cost of new homes sold last week rose 3.6 percent to 47,521 yuan (US$6,917) per square meter, Centaline data showed.
Over 75 percent of the new houses sold last week cost 60,000 yuan per square meter and below, a research released by Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co said.
An apartment project in Jiading remained the most sought-after development for the third straight week after 253 units were sold at an average price of 31,142 yuan per square meter each. So far, the project sold 670 units, compared with some 130 units at its closest counterpart.
New home supply released locally fell 24.2 percent to 6,000 square meters last week, Centaline data showed.
--source from Shanghai Daily
