Measures aimed at cooling Shanghai's sizzling real estate market by discouraging property speculation had slowed home sales and investment, with average daily new home sales in the city falling by about 60 percent since March, domestic media reported Wednesday.Sales of new homes -- mainly apartments -- fell to a low of 232 units a day last week from 604 a day in mid-March, the China Daily reported, citing industry statistics.It said prices for Shanghai residential properties fell about 9 percent from the previous month to 8,097 yuan (US$980) per square meter in April.In the past two months the government has raised taxes on real estate transactions and enacted other measures designed to discourage speculative dealing in property that it said had pushed real estate prices to unsustainable levels, pricing most local residents out of the market.Although prices in central Shanghai remained near record levels, the pace of transactions slowed. In suburban areas prices had plunged by as much as 40 percent, the newspaper reported.Sales of second-hand homes had also plunged, with prices falling by as much as 20 percent, real estate brokers said.The crackdown on speculative trading and cutbacks in lending have left some property owners in debt and desperate to sell. Others are waiting to see how the market adjusts to the new rules."The market is now at a turning point," the report quoted Lina Wong, managing director of Colliers International (East China), as saying."The strong measures aimed at clamping down on property speculation will effectively curb demand and affect sales of apartments in new projects."Meanwhile, investment in Shanghai's real estate development market had slowed, another report said.

 
Source:Shenzhen Daily