Consumption Expenditure News
- Luxury home prices decline in Aug.
Date: 20-Sep-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
PRICES of large homes in Shenzhen declined as the number of transactions shrank by 31 percent last month compared with July, according to local government figures.
A report from the local land resources and housing management bureau said that new luxury apartments with a floor area of 144 square meters and above sold for 21,621 yuan (US$2,879) per square meter in August, down 2,034 yuan from July, although the prices of apartments smaller than 144 square meters continued to rise.
Compared with June, the total floor space of houses sold in July shrank by 15.32 percent to 489,800 square meters, or some 5,000 flats. That in August declined to 338,300 square meters, or 3,200 units, down 30.93 percent, the smallest amount so far this year. Sales outside the special economic zone last month fared even worse, down 41.83 percent for new homes and 26.39 percent for secondhand homes compared with July.
Wang Feng, writer of the report and the chief of Shenzhen Real Estate Research Center, said the shrinkage indicated that speculation in the red-hot property market had been curbed to some extent and both home buyers and speculators are adopting a wait-and-see attitude.
However the report said apartments less than 90 square meters had still attracted a great amount of speculation over the past few months, with 60 percent of sales to speculators.
Separately, a report from the city's major property agency Centaline indicated that the number of sales of secondhand houses in Shenzhen increased 10.36 percent in the first half of this month compared with the same period of last month, although the average price of the apartments had fallen by 5.25 percent. It said this showed that the market tended to be dominated by owners rather than speculators.
According to the local taxation bureau, a new price assessment system for secondhand home sales has been completed and will be effective next month to avoid tax evasion.
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