BUYING sentiment for luxury houses rose significantly in Shanghai last week although overall sales of new residential properties still remained rather weak, major real estate research companies reported.

A total of 12,600 square meters of luxury homes, priced at over 50,000 yuan (US$7,758) per square meter each, were sold across the city last week, the highest weekly volume registered since May. Star River in Huamu of Pudong registered sales of more than 4,500 square meters at an average price of nearly 70,000 yuan per square meter.

"The past week witnessed the strongest sales of luxury homes in nearly three months, with a development in Pudong New Area leading all others when ti sold 13 units," said Lu Qilin, a Shanghai Deovolente Realty Co researcher. "That also helped push up the city's average price of new homes quite notably."

Sales of new homes, excluding affordable housing, gained 21 percent to 170,800 square meters between July 18 and July 24, but they stayed below the 200,000-square-meter barrier for the third straight week, according to a research released yesterday by Deovolente.

The average price of new homes rose 3.1 percent to 22,854 yuan per square meter last week, Deovolente data showed.

Six residential projects with a total gross floor area of 207,500 square meters, most being apartments sited beyond the city's Outer Ring Road, were released to the local market, a weekly increase of 22 percent, according to Deovolente research.

Huang Zhijian, chief analyst at Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co, forecast yesterday new home deals, which have totaled less than 540,000 square meters as of Sunday, may reach about 700,000 square meters for the whole of July.