New home sales in Shanghai rose last week to the highest so far this year but the average price was basically flat, according to latest market data.
The area of new homes sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, jumped 34.5 percent to 163,000 square meters last week, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report released yesterday.
The outlying district of Jiading sold 39,000 square meters of houses last week, the most in the city.
Qingpu and Songjiang followed with about 20,000 square meters of new houses sold in each of the districts during the seven-day period, Centaline data showed.
"It is actually the first major rebound we have seen this year but it still seems a bit far from the 200,000-square-meter weekly threshold, which is usually considered average," said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline.
"It is hard to say whether the strength could be maintained for another week."
The average price of new homes sold last week rose 1.1 percent to 45,881 yuan (US$6,645) per square meter, with medium to low-end homes being dominant.
Homes in two of the 10 most popular projects asked for over 50,000 yuan per square meter on average while those in the remaining eight cost between 31,000 yuan and 46,000 yuan per square meter, according to Centaline data.
A Jiading project sold 320 apartments last week for an average 31,219 yuan per square meter.
Supply of new houses also rose notably amid improved sentiment among real estate developers, which released about 100,000 square meters of new homes last week, up 48.5 percent week on week.
