Home sales plunge during holiday break

Source: Xinhua | 2019-05-08

New home sales plunged in Shanghai last week, mainly due to the four-day May Day break.

The area of new residential properties sold, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, dived 68.5 percent to about 65,000 square meters in the seven days to Sunday, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co reported yesterday.

“The May Day holiday, which this year lasted one day longer than usual, was probably the main reason behind last week’s significant drop in transaction volume,” said Lu Wenxi, Centaline’s senior research manager. “Moreover, it is typical to see volume drop in the beginning of a month as real estate developers often choose to gear up at the end of a month to boost their monthly performance.”

The outer districts of Qingpu and Songjiang registered good sales, although neither exceeded 10,000 square meters.

Citywide, new homes sold for an average of 57,597 yuan (US$8,478) per square meter, a week-on-week increase of 5 percent.