Shanghai new home sales double amid surge in supply

Shanghai's new home sales more than doubled last week amid a previous surge in supply, the latest market data showed.

The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, jumped 109.3 percent to 197,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report released yesterday.

"It was the second highest weekly transaction registered so far this year, mainly boosted by abundant new supply released in the previous seven-day period," said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline. "The most popular project managed to register weekly sales of more than 500 units and that was rarely seen in recent months."

Across the city, outlying Jiading District led all with transaction volume totaling around 65,000 square meters, a week-over-week surge of 261 percent. It was most closely trailed by Songjiang, where sales of new houses more than tripled to around 40,000 square meters. 

Chongming, Fengxian, Baoshan and Qingpu were the four other districts that recorded weekly sales of more than 10,000 square meters. 

The average cost of a new home fell 3.6 percent from the previous week to 47,424 yuan (US$6,955) per square meter, a structural shift amid robust sales of medium to low-end properties, Centaline data showed.

A Longfor Property project in Jiading grabbed the title of best-selling residential development last week after unloading 54,301 square meters, or 522 apartments, for an average price of 51,862 yuan per square meter. A Gemdale project, with a price tag of 40,627 yuan per square meter, followed with seven-day sales of 35,127 square meters, or 355 units.

In the top 10 list, two projects cost more than 80,000 yuan per square meter, five of which asked for no more than 50,000 yuan per square meter, according to Centaline data.

On the supply side, around 126,000 square meters of new houses spanning four projects were released onto the local market, a week-over-week drop of 69 percent. As supply remains abundant, July will very likely outperform April to become the best month of this year in terms of new home sales, Shanghai Homelink Real Estate Agency Co predicted in a separate report. 

As of Sunday, new home sales in July almost reached 3,700 units in Shanghai, compared with around 4,600 units sold in April.