NEW home sales rebounded slightly in Shanghai last week mainly, fueled by strong sales at several developments where notable price cuts were offered to attract buyers.
Sales of new homes, excluding government-funded affordable housing, climbed 12.3 percent to 111,700 square meters during the seven-day period that ended yesterday, standing above the 100,000-square-meter barrier for the first time in three weeks, Shanghai Deovolente Realty Co said today.
New residential properties were sold for an average 21,015 yuan (US$3,309) per square meter, an increase of 1.2 percent from the previous week, Deovolente data showed.
"Real estate developers who provided notable discounts all managed to register good sales recently and possibly, more builders, as well as individual owners of existing houses, may join similar campaigns in the coming months," said Lu Qilin, a researcher at Deovolente. "While significant cuts are currently mostly provided in outlying parts of the city by a few developers, we expect to see a similar scenario in some central districts as well with austerity measures remaining vigorously enforced."
A China Overseas Property development in Zhoukang, Pudong New Area, sold 174 units, or the most in the city, after offering price cuts of more than 20 percent and a residential project in Qingpu District developed by China Vanke Co also secured 77 purchase deals last week after the builder introduced discounts of nearly 30 percent.
On the supply side, more than 216,000 square meters of new houses were released to the local market last week, a decrease of 4.5 percent. Citywide, new home inventory soared to 9.35 million square meters by today, compared to 8.9 million registered at the end of October, a result of rather stable supply and extremely sluggish sales so far this month.
In the first 20 days of November, new home sales in Shanghai totaled just 284,600 square meters, a year-on-year drop of 45.3 percent, Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co said today.
In the luxury residential market, a total of 4,500 square meters of new houses costing above 50,000 yuan per square meter were traded across the city over the past week, a surge of 40 percent from the previous seven-day period, Deovolente data showed.
Among these, an apartment at Casa Lakeville, a Shui On Land project in the premier Xintiandi area, fetched a price of 166,000 yuan per square meter, the second most costly unit sold in the city so far this year