Home-buying momentum remained sluggish in Shanghai last week as tightening measures to cool the overheated market continued to bite.
The area of new homes sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, rose 2.1 percent to 148,000 square meters last week, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report released yesterday.
"As of Sunday, only about 487,000 square meters of new homes were sold across the city, which means the entire monthly sales should probably hover around 700,000 square meters at most, a low volume for April," said Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline. "With home restriction policies unlikely to be relaxed, we expect the local housing market to remain subdued."
The Pudong New Area led all districts with 28,000 square meters of new homes sold during the seven-day period, a weekly surge of 115.4 percent. The outlying Jiading District was next with weekly sales soaring 107.7 percent to 27,000 square meters, according to Centaline data.
The average cost of new homes rose 9.2 percent to 46,540 yuan ($6,760) per square meter amid comparatively strong demand from home upgraders.
A housing project in Pudong sold 127 units last week at an average 55,381 yuan per square meter to become the most popular housing project in the city.
Two other projects in remote districts of Songjiang and Baoshan were also in the top-10 list when units in each of them cost above 50,000 yuan per square meter.
Seven housing projects totaling 201,000 square meters were released locally last week, up from under 170,000 square meters released a week earlier. "It was the second-highest seven-day supply recorded so far this year," Lu said.
