Housing sales continue to head south

by reachhome on 2019年3月20日

Shanghai’s new housing sales continued to lose momentum last week despite increased supply, the latest market data showed.

The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, plunged 40 percent to around 59,000 square meters during the seven days to Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report released on Tuesday.

“This was even a larger fall than the week before though March is traditionally a season of major rebounds in sales,” Lu Wenxi, Centaline’s senior research manager said. “Only one district posted sales exceeding 10,000 square meter while not a single project managed to sell more than 100 units during the period.”

Across the city, only outlying Baoshan District stayed above the 10,000-square-meter threshold, followed by remote Jiading District where seven-day sales fell by nearly 10 percent to around 8,200 square meters. 

Citywide, new homes sold for an average 53,483 yuan (US$7,960) per square meter, a week-on-week decrease of 8 percent.

In the top 10 list, six projects cost between 30,000 yuan per square meter and 60,000 yuan per square meter while one development in Chongming Island asked for less than 25,000 yuan per square meter.

A total of 256,000 square meters of new homes in six projects, all located in remote areas of the city, went on the market last week.

Targeting mainly first-time buyers, these medium to low-end developments might help boost sales over the next couple of weeks, Lu predicted.