Home-buying sentiment rebounded in Shanghai last week after the market emerged from the weeklong National Day holiday break, according to the latest data.

The area of new homes sold, excluding government-funded affordable housing, jumped 37.1 percent from the previous week to 235,000 square meters, Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co said in a report released yesterday.

Jiading District led with 42,000 square meters of new homes sold over the seven-day period, followed by Qingpu District with new-home sales of 29,000 square meters and the Pudong New Area with transactions totaling 24,000 square meters.

But Lu Wenxi, senior manager of research at Centaline, didn’t see the rebound as “significant” and cautioned against hopes of a major recovery due to tightening measures.

“As more tightening measures continue to be rolled out as the government vows to tame the red-hot property market, no major recovery in buyers’ sentiment should be expected.”

On October 8, Shanghai unveiled measures that included raising land supply and increasing supervision of funding sources for land purchases in a bid to curb speculative property purchases.

Meanwhile, the average cost of the new homes was 44,601 yuan (US$6,621) per square meter, a week-on-week rise of 3.8 percent, according to Centaline data.

The supply of new houses surged 78.5 percent from the previous week to 164,000 square meters during the seven-day period, according to Centaline data.

(Source: shanghaidaily.com  Author: Cherry Cao)