DESPITE a rebound in supply, new home buying sentiment dimmed in Shanghai real estate market last week due to the Qingming Festival holiday, market data showed yesterday.
The area of new homes sold in the city, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, dived 66.4 percent from the previous seven-day period to under 100,000 square meters,
the lowest in seven weeks, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report.
“The week-on-week drop was actually no surprise,” said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline, adding that such sluggish momentum might extend through the Labor Day
holiday falling on May 1.
“Most of the sales came from medium and low-end segments, which also accounted for most of the new supply during the same period,” Lu said.
The new homes were sold at an average 45,378 yuan (US$6,575) per square meter, a weekly drop of 10.7 percent.
Nanhui in the Pudong New Area led other areas as it sold 16,000 square meters of new homes last week, according to Centaline data.
Songjiang District followed with sales of 12,000 square meters, and Qingpu District sold 11,000 square meters.
A housing development in Fengxian District was the most sought-after last week when it sold 81 apartments for an average 18,051 yuan per square meter. It was also the only
project in the top-10 list with units selling for less than 20,000 yuan per square meter. Units in the other nine projects cost from 27,000 yuan per square meter to about 82,400
yuan per square meter.
New houses in outlying areas targeting budget-tight first-time buyers dominated last week’s supply of 112,000 square meters, a weekly rise of 32.4 percent and the highest in
five weeks, Centaline data showed.
--source from Shanghai Daily
