A slumping stock market halved Shanghai’s luxury home sales last month and threw into doubt prospects for the traditional September-October peak season.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has lost nearly 40 per cent from its mid-June peak.
As trillions of paper wealth were wiped out in the stock plunge, the once sizzling luxury housing market in Shanghai has bit dust. Units sold above 100,000 yuan per square metre slid to 33 last month from 54 in July and a record high of 91 in June, according to data from Dooioo Homelink.
The consultancy’s head of research, Lu Qilin, said: “If the stock market fails to rebound, the luxury housing market is unlikely to bounce back soon.”
He added the decline in August was also caused by some developers slowing down the pace of sales to prepare for the September “golden” month.
Tomson Riviera, a riverfront project launched a decade ago overlooking the Bund, sold just one unit. Local housing bureau data showed the developer, Hong Kong’s Tomson Group, has sold 81 luxury homes from the project at an average price of 133,386 yuan per square metre and still has 100 residential units left.
Emperor Zillah, also in Shanghai’s Pudong new area, sold an 873 square metre villa for 135 million yuan, or 154,639 yuan per square metre. Since its launch in 2008, 10 villas have been sold, at an average price of 142,216 yuan per square metre. Another 11 are yet to be sold.