December is expected to be the best performing month of the year for Shanghai's real estate market amid a continued robust home-buying pace last week despite a slight fall.
The area of new homes sold, excluding government-funded affordable housing, fell 5.4 percent week on week to 452,800 square meters, Shanghai Homelink Real Estate Agency Co said in a report released yesterday.
The new homes were sold at an average 32,277 yuan ($4,973) per square meter, down 3 percent from a week earlier.
"By Sunday, new home transactions already totaled 1.54 million square meters in the city, the highest monthly volume registered in almost six years," said Lu Qilin, director of research at Shanghai Homelink.
"In particular, medium to low-end projects were the most popular among buyers with eight of the 10 best selling developments priced at no more than 30,000 yuan per square meter."
Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Ltd, predicted: "New home transactions will likely hit 1.7 million square meters this month if the current pace of sales is maintained."
