Shanghai house transactions decline 27% in Dec

Shanghai’s preowned house transactions in December shrank 27 percent monthon-month to 13,300 units, the lowest in the past 25 months, as a result of a series of measures to cool down the city’s residential property market.

A research note issued by the Shanghai Existing Property Index Office, which tracks transaction data of preowned housing properties, said that more than 66 percent of transactions of preowned homes were sold below 3 million yuan ($431,100) per unit, a signal that buyers’ demand is shifting from speculative or investment-oriented to selfuse.

“In terms of average prices, about 44 percent of communities with preowned house supplies saw prices rise Chongqing housing market ‘stable’ in recent months slightly around 0.7 percent in December, while the other 56 percent reported prices falling about 1 percent, or remaining unchanged,” the research note said.

The December data were a natural result of alignment with the overall trend following a buying spree in the third quarter of 2016 when the government announced a series of tightening measures to cool down the market. The city’s residential home sales plunged, as mass market sales fell 50 percent quarter-on-quarter and high-end house sales down 29 percent quarter-on-quar- ter in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to data from real estate services provider JLL.

“New supply has fallen sharply, while developers’ appetite for land fades. New supply in the mass market contracted 34 percent quarter-on-quarter as the govern- ment issued tightening measures. In the high-end segment, the quarter saw only two projects launch a combined 275 new units, representing a sharp decline of 76 percent from the previous quarter,” said Zhou Jing, director of the residential property business arm of JLL in Shanghai.

However, upgraders’ demand remained buoyant, preventing a steeper decline in sales momentum, with strong sales in newly launched projects.

Homebuyers said they feel that sellers of preowned properties are becoming more rational as they are more flexible and open to price negotiations.

However, the average prices of properties in key areas of Shanghai are still rising, albeit at a slower pace, and are unlikely to decline in the foreseeable future.

Housing authorities in Chongqing said average residential property prices and transaction volumes were stable in recent months, amid reports that buyers were flocking to the city to speculate in real estate.

Reports on social media platforms said investors eager to take advantage of the relatively low prices of Chongqing’s residential property market had taken flights from all over the country to visit projects in the most populous city in southwestern China, pushing up average housing prices.

“In fact, the residential property market in Chongqing was stable in recent months. On average, the daily transactions volume was 60,000 square meters since the beginning of 2017, about 24 percent lower than daily average of December 2016,” according to Xinhua News Agency report.

“The average price was 7,541 yuan ($1,080) per sq m year-todate, 0.49 percent lower than that of December 2016,” the report said.

Analysts said that as Chongqing’s land supply is more ample than many of other second-tier cities, average residential prices can be lower, a natural result of the supply-demand mechanism.