A bumper year for home sales

By Cao Qian | January 4, 2016, Monday |

Online Edition

SHANGHAI'S new home sales market rounded out the year on a roll, as loosening mortgage restrictions and continuous cuts in both interest rates and banks' reserve requirement ratios proved effective to trigger demand from buyers.

The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-funded affordable housing, exceeded 15 million square meters in the city last year, a surge of 55 percent from 2014, Shanghai Homelink Real Estate Agency Co said in a report released today. The new homes were sold for an average 32,174 yuan (US$4,945) per square meter, a year-on-year rise of 18.1 percent.

"New home transaction climbed 26 percent further from November to over 1.88 million square meters in December, making it not only the most in 2015 but also the highest monthly volume recorded in Shanghai since the second half of 2009, beating earlier market expectations," said Ke Xiaojuan, a researcher at Shanghai Homelink. "The average cost of new homes also stayed well above the 30,000-yuan-per-square-meter threshold, despite an insignificant monthly retreat due to some structural shift."

Citywide, new homes sold in Shanghai last month cost an average 33,562 yuan per square meter, a drop of 3.4 percent from November. On the supply side, meanwhile, 959,000 square meters of new houses were released to the local market, an increase of 7.3 percent from November, according to Homelink data.

Robust sales have helped cut inventory of new homes in the city to below 10.7 million square meters, a notable drop from the end of November when some 11.5 million square meters of new houses were available for sale.

The current level of housing stock would be taken up in less than 8 months if there were no new supply and the current pace of sales prevailed, Lu Wenxi, a senior manager of research at Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Ltd, predicted.

Across the city, Tomson Riviera in Lujiazui of Pudong New Area was the most expensive residential project in 2015 where five apartments there fetched a combined 702 million yuan over the past 12 months, or 214,401 yuan per square meter on average, Homelink data showed.

Real Estate

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A bumper year for home sales

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