Buying momentum for new homes remained sluggish in Shanghai last week while fewer transactions in the high-end market dragged down average prices.
Sales of new homes, excluding those built under the city's affordable housing programs, climbed 9.5 percent from a week earlier to 131,300 square meters, Shanghai Deovolente Realty Co said in a report released yesterday.
The volume, however, was lower than this year's weekly average of about 143,400 square meters.
"Sales of new residential properties have been slack since February and there is still no clear sign real estate developers will offer discounts," said Lu Qilin, a researcher with Deovolente.
"With inflation still high and while investment channels remain limited, real estate will continue to attract capital as a hedge despite all the cool-down efforts introduced by the government," Lu added.
Average prices, meanwhile, fell 3.2 percent from a week earlier to 21,311 yuan (US$3,294) per square meter, Deovolente data showed.
Across the city, sales of new homes costing more than 50,000 yuan per square meter plunged more than 30 percent to only 3,600 square meters last week.
No deals involving new residential properties with a price tag of more than 100,000 yuan per square meter were signed last week.
On the supply side, a total of 265,100 square meters of new houses were released, a week-on-week increase of 35 percent.
Jiading District lead all districts in terms of transaction volume with more than 22,000 square meters of new homes sold last week.
