The average price of a new home rose to its highest in a year in Shanghai last week with high-end houses remaining popular with buyers.

New homes, excluding those for residents relocated under the city's urban redevelopment plans, sold for 17,042 yuan (US$2,495) per square meter between June 29 and July 5, an increase of 1 percent from a week earlier, according to research released yesterday by the Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co.

"The weekly price was the highest since June 2008 as several luxury developments registered booming sales over the past week," said Lu Qilin, a researcher at Uwin. "New home prices continued to increase over the past few weeks, now already more than 15 percent compared with four weeks ago.''

Luxury apartment projects including Shanghai Bay and Casa Lakeville, as well as villa projects such as Greentown Rose Garden, were among the bestsellers.

At Shanghai Bay in Xuhui District, 25 units were sold at 32,162 yuan per square meter on average last week while 21 units at Casa Lakeville in Xintiandi, Luwan District, were sold at an average of 69,413 yuan per square meter.

Nine villas at Greentown Rose Garden in Minhang District, which range in prices from more than 20 million yuan to 60 million yuan, were sold last week, according to Uwin statistics.

For the whole of June, a total of 163,000 square meters of new homes, with a price tag of more than 30,000 yuan per square meter, were sold around the city, a year-on-year increase of 15.6 percent and a month-on-month jump of 30.4 percent.

Among luxury projects, Yanlord Town in Pudong, Maison des Artistes in Gubei, Changning District, and Greentown Rose Garden were the three top sellers in June - finding buyers for 16,261 square meters, 11,873 square meters and 9,883 square meters respectively last month, according to Uwin statistics.

(Shanghai Daily July 7, 2009)