Shanghai's land market drops to 3-year low

SHANGHAI'S land market fell to the lowest in three years amid a sharp decrease in supply, according to an industry research.

Last year 8.02 million square meters of land were sold for 87.58 billion yuan (US$13.9 billion) in the city, a plunge of 40 percent and 26 percent, respectively, from 2011, Soufun.com, China's largest real estate website operator, said yesterday in a report.

"Despite a notable recovery in appetite among real estate developers to expand their land banks since the second half, the city's land sales hit a three-year low in 2012 in terms of both transaction volume and value," said Zhang Wanyu, a Soufun analyst. "Only 8.98 million square meters of land parcels were released to the local market during the past 12 months, a plunge of nearly 40 percent from 2011."

Shanghai sold 13.36 million square meters of land for 118.3 billion yuan in 2011 while in 2010 sales of 12.76 million square meters of land yielded 138.2 billion yuan, according to earlier Soufun data.

The sales of land for residential properties, excluding government-funded affordable housing, fell 37 percent annually to 3.04 million square meters in Shanghai last year. The sales value fell 16 percent annually to 39.3 billion yuan, Soufun said.

The outlying Jiading District led the land sales when 1.72 million square meters of land were sold, taking up over one fifth of the city's total for 2012. The Pudong New Area trailed with 1.16 million square meters of land sold during the same period.

"Abundant land supply will continue to push up home inventory there (Jiading) and fuel competition in the area further," Zhang said.

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