NEW home sales fell for the third straight week in Shanghai with medium to low-end projects being the most popular type among buyers.
The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-funded affordable housing, dropped 5.2 percent to 119,000 square meters during the seven-day period ended Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report released today.
"Weekly sales registered at any single housing project failed to reach the 100-unit threshold for the second consecutive week, a sign for extremely sluggish momentum," said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Shanghai Centaline. "Citywide, Qingpu was the only district that managed to sell over 20,000 square meters of new houses."
Outlying districts such as Jiading and Songjiang recorded weekly sales of around 14,000 square meters and 12,000 square meters, respectively, a notable drop of between 20 percent and 30 percent from previous levels.
The new houses were sold for around 47,114 yuan (US$6,903) per square meter, a week-over-week decline of 2.4 percent, Centaline data showed.
A residential project in remote Fengxian District sold 70 apartments last week at an average price of 30,943 yuan per square meter, making it the most sought-after development last week. Four out of the 10 best-selling projects cost no more than 30,000 yuan per square meter and the most expensive one in the top 10 list, located in downtown Putuo District bearing a price tag of 71,077 yuan per square meter, registered sales of 16 units last week.
On the supply side, some 132,000 square meters of new houses spanning five projects, majority of which costing between 30,000 yuan and 40,000 yuan per square meter, were launched locally last week, a fall of 14.8 percent from the previous seven-day period.
As of Sunday, new home transaction totaled 333,200 square meters so far this month, a retreat of 12.3 percent from same period a month ago, according to a separate report released today by Shanghai Homelink Real Estate Agency Co.
--source from Shanghai Daily
