BUYING sentiment for new homes rebounded in Shanghai for the first time in six weeks and average price continued to stay at high levels due to robust sales of mid- to high-end projects.
New home sales jumped 34.6 percent to 214,000 square meters last week, terminating a five-week decline since mid-October, Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co said. The figure excluded houses built for relocated residents under urban redevelopment plans.
"Abundant supply released during the previous seven-day period triggered home sales last week," said Lu Qilin, a researcher at Uwin. "In particular, Baoshan District, where new home supply jumped notably during the previous week, registered the highest transaction volume between November 15 and November 21 among local counterparts."
More than 44,000 square meters of new houses were sold in outlying Baoshan last week, immediately followed by Songjiang and Nanhui districts, which each secured new home sales of more than 24,000 and 21,000 square meters, respectively, according to Uwin statistics.
Average price, meanwhile, rose 9.8 percent from a week earlier to 23,011 yuan (US$3,465) per square meter, remaining above the 20,000-yuan barrier for nine straight weeks.
One residential project near Zhongshan Park in Changning District concluded sales of 95 apartments, or 11,873 square meters, last week for an average price of 44,321 yuan per square meter while another development in Daning in Zhabei District recorded sales of 67 units at an average price of 33,552 yuan per square meter. The average price of both these projects more than doubled from about two years ago, Uwin statistics showed.
A latest industry research conducted by Century 21 China Real Estate, operator of the city's second-largest estate chain, found that the average price of new homes continued to climb, particularly in the high-end sector.
After tracking new residential projects with a price tag of more than 50,000 yuan per square meter and registering sales in both October and this month, Century 21 found that some 80 percent of them had already raised their prices by between 7 and 12 percent compared to October.