New housing sales lifted by outlying areas

New housing sales in Shanghai rose to their highest in 30 weeks amid strong activity in major outlying areas, the latest market figures show.

The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, jumped 46.7 percent to around 248,000 square meters during the seven-day period ending Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co announced in a report released on Monday.

"As expected, transactions increased considerably during the last week of March as real estate developers geared up to improve their performance for both the month and the first quarter," said Lu Wenxi, Centaline's senior research manager. 

"Notably, four housing developments managed to register weekly sales of more than 100 units, something that hasn't been seen over the past six months and is clearly evidence for solidly improving market sentiment," Lu said.

Across the city, Songjiang District outperformed with seven-day sales hitting 48,000 square meters, compared with some 18,000 square meters sold in the previous week. Fengxian District and Pudong New Area followed most closely, unloading 37,000 square meters and 32,000 square meters of new home space, respectively. Weekly transactions in Baoshan and Qingpu districts both exceeded 20,000 square meters as well, according to Centaline data.

Citywide, new homes sold for an average of 55,449 yuan (US$8,261) per square meter, representing a week-on-week rise of 8.8 percent.

In the top 10 by transaction area, three projects cost more than 80,000 yuan per square meter, with one development in the downtown Laoximen area of Huangpu District selling for nearly 130,000 yuan per square meter on average. The remaining seven projects all commanded less than 60,000 yuan per square meter, including one staying below the 30,000-yuan-per-square-meter threshold.

A Gemdale development in Songjiang was the most sought-after project after selling 18,044 square meters, or 168 apartments, at an average price of 39,614 yuan per square meter. It was trailed by a COFCO project in Fengxian, which unloaded 17,464 square meters, or 182 units, for an average price of 36,145 yuan per square meter.

On the supply side, a total of 179,000 square meters of new housing, mostly in outlying districts such as Songjiang and Baoshan, hit the market last week, representing a week-over-week drop of 22 percent.

Last week's robust sales also helped lift the overall performance of March, which saw new home transactions more than double from February, a separate Centaline report showed.

A total of 632,000 square meters of new housing were sold around the city last month for an average price of 54,184 yuan per square meter, up 106.5 percent and down 8.5 percent, respectively, from a month earlier. Meanwhile, new home supply, most of it falling within the range of 30,000 yuan and 60,000 yuan per square meter, reached 788,000 square meters, a monthly surge of 194 percent, according to Centaline data.