THE trading volume of new apartments last month in Shenzhen hit the lowest point of the year, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported Monday.

    A total of 2,161 new apartments were sold in Shenzhen last month, marking a month-on-month decline of 26 percent and a year-on-year drop of 70 percent. The average price was 54,946 yuan (US$7,963) per square meter, which was 0.1 percent lower than November.

    Official data shows that around 50 to 80 new apartments were sold per day last month, with the average price stabilizing at around 50,000 yuan per square meter.

    More than 4,000 new homes were sold per month between January and March last year, but after the city government introduced new property policies to tame the real estate market in March, the trading volume stabilized at 2,200 to 3,300 new apartments per month until October.

    Meanwhile, the transaction price of new homes dropped by 9.7 percent to 55,611 yuan per square meter in October after a range of new property policies were put in place that month.

    Jiang Shaojie, general manager of Midland Realty in Shenzhen and Huizhou, said that the property market in Shenzhen won’t show signs of recovery until March, but many homebuyers still hold an optimistic attitude toward the market in the long term because of the huge demand and limited supply of new apartments in Shenzhen.

    According to Jiang, the trading volume and transaction prices of new apartments in Shenzhen in the first half of this year is expected to be lower than in the first half of 2016.

    Statistics from Centaline Property show that around 140 new property projects will enter the market this year. Specifically, more than 40 projects are located in Longgang District, while 30 are located in Bao’an and 10 are in Nanshan District. (Zhang Yang)