MORE than 500 pre-owned homes were sold in Shenzhen between Feb. 23 and March 1, almost triple the number in the same period of last year, according to statistics by Zhonglian Real Estate.

    The average price of the pre-owned homes sold last week was 29,471 yuan (US$4,715.36) per square meter, up 4.5 percent from the previous week. Half of the homes sold were priced between 2 and 3 million yuan.

    The Daily Sunshine said yesterday that 72 percent of the 503 pre-owned homes were sold to first-time homebuyers, while the other 27.8 percent were bought by those who decided to find a larger home.

    Apartments with an area of between 60 and 90 square meters were the most popular among homebuyers, the paper said.

    The pre-owned home market research institute of Zhonglian predicted that sales of pre-owned homes would continue increasing in the coming weeks because of the interest rate cuts by the central bank that took effect Sunday.

    Pre-owned home sales will probably reach a record high before the end of April, according to the institute.

    Separately, 338 new homes were sold last week for an average price of 28,000 yuan per square meter. The number of new homes sold grew 78 percent from the week before the Chinese New Year holidays. The number was also an increase of 49 percent over the same period last year.

    It is predicted that new home sales in March will grow by 20 to 30 percent compared with the same period last year.

    Three residential housing estates that hit the market at the beginning of February have all seen more than 80 percent of their apartments sold, the paper said.

    Some homebuyers who hoped for lower prices after the Spring Festival were left disappointed. “I thought the property prices would fall after the implementation of the new unified real estate registration system started Sunday,” said a woman surnamed Chen who planned to buy an apartment in Shixia Community in Futian. The apartment she planned to buy was priced at 3 million yuan in November, but when she checked again last week the price was raised by 100,000 yuan.

    The unified real estate registration system has been seen as an integral part of new moves to fight corruption, as the system contains an information sharing platform that is accessible online. The platform will be put into use by June.

    The manager of a real estate brokerage in Shixia area surnamed Lin said there are quite a few homebuyers like Chen who were disappointed with the price hikes. “They were hoping homeowners would release more pre-owned homes into the market, which would drive down the prices.”

    Lin said a large number of homeowners have raised their prices recently. (Martin Li)