Sales of Shanghai luxury homes fall

SHANGHAI: Sales of high-end homes in Shanghai fell 56.4% last month from April as investors and home seekers were cautious amid the uncertain policy environment.

Prices fell 4% during the same period, property consultant DTZ said.

Shanghai has yet to adopt measures in response to the central government's desire to cool the real estate market. Many other cities such as Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Tianjin have instituted measures to regulate the market. Many investors were adopting a "wait-and-see" attitude because they were uncertain whether the Shanghai city government would impose a property tax to cool prices, Jenny Wu, director of DTZ's integrated residential services, East China, said.

Talk was rife that Shanghai would be the first city to introduce a property tax to discourage speculators.

But Wu said the decline in the volume of high-end home sales last month was smaller than the market average.

The city saw an overall decline of more than 70% in sales volume, she said.

This implied that high-end property had stronger support.

She expected luxury homes to have more stable prices than mass housing.

Meanwhile, new home sales in Shanghai fell 22.62% to 65,000 square metres during the week from June 14 to June 20, according to data compiled by Soufun.com. From June 7 to June 13, there were 84,000 square metres of residential space sold.

Last week, the average price of new homes fell 7% to 17,998 yuan (RM8,535) per square metre, while the supply of homes rose 24% to 129,000 square metres. -- South China Morning Post