New home sales reach highest in 18 weeks in city

FIRST-TIME buyers boosted purchases of new homes in Shanghai to the highest in 18 weeks last week, industry data showed yesterday.

The sales of new homes, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, jumped 25.9 percent weekly to 260,100 square meters during the seven-day period through Sunday, Shanghai Deovolente Realty Co said.

They were sold at an average of 21,376 yuan (US$3,393) per square meter, a weekly drop of 7.1 percent.

"Real estate developers would usually gear up at the end of the month and that helped boost transactions to an 18-week high," said Lu Qilin, a Deovolente researcher. "Demand for mid to low-end houses seemed to be fairly strong."

Citywide, the sales of new homes costing no more than 25,000 yuan totaled 190,700 square meters, a weekly surge of 30.2 percent, while sales of newly-built homes priced between 25,000 yuan and 40,000 yuan a square meter rose 19.3 percent from a week earlier to 54,600 square meters, according to a separate research released yesterday by Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co.

About 73,500 square meters of new homes were released to the local market last week, down over 60 percent weekly, according to Deovolente data.

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