New home prices rising further on strong supply

SHANGHAI’S new housing market continued its rally last week with transaction volume remaining above the 200,000square-meter threshold, the latest market data showed.

The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, rose 16.1 percent to 240,000 square meters during the seven days to Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report released yesterday.

“Abundant new supply released over the past few weeks continued to boost market sentiment around the city, with medium to high-end properties recording extremely good sales,” said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline.

Minhang District was the best-performing area, with weekly sales hitting 43,000 square meters.

The outer districts of Qingpu and Baoshan both registered transactions of around 30,000 square meters.

Pudong New Area recorded about 22,000 square meters of sales last week, Centaline data showed.

The average cost of a new home jumped 12.9 percent week over week to 61,477 yuan (US$8,992) per square meter, a result of structural shifts and also a weekly record in Shanghai.

A residential project in Minhang was the most active, selling 33,851 square meters, or 218 units, for an average price of 70,630 yuan per square meter.

A project in Qingpu, with an average price of 48,051 yuan per square meter, was close behind.

It sold 14,704 square meters, or 124 apartments, during the seven-day period, according to Centaline.

In the top 10 list, three projects cost more than 70,000 yuan per square meter. The most expensive one, located in downtown Laoximen area of Huangpu District with a price tag of over 120,000 yuan per square meter on average, sold 7,916 square meters, or 41 units, last week.

On the supply side, some 155,000 square meters of new houses, mostly medium to highend homes, were released onto the local market, a week-overweek retreat of 48.9 percent, according to Centaline data.