VERY few attractive discounts are on offer at an ongoing property exhibition in Shanghai, reflecting a positive sentiment in the market.

The four-day Shanghai Real Estate Expo, the first major real estate fair to be held in the city every year, opened yesterday at the Shanghai Exhibition Center with about 500 domestic and overseas property developments on display. That compared with some 300 projects on offer last year.

"About 20,000 square meters of exhibition space have been booked this year with expected total number of visitors likely to touch 140,000 people," said Guo Lijuan, an official with EJU Times Leader, a unit of E-House China and one of the two major organizers of the annual event. "The majority of the local projects are located in outlying districts with many of them being small to medium-sized apartments, while many overseas real estate projects are targeting Chinese planning to settle abroad."

Major local developers participating this year include Greenland, Pengxin and Zendai but leading national players such as China Vanke and Gemdale stayed away.

Hong Kong builders such as K.Wah Group and Hutchison Whampoa also displayed their new projects.

While visitors packed the exhibition center, many of them were disappointed about high prices with very few developers offering discounts.

"Home prices are still very high for me," a woman surnamed Li and in her 50s said after checking the price of a residential project in Putuo District whose asking price was more than 35,000 yuan (US$5,573) a square meter.

"I don't think projects in such a remote location should be asking that kind of money but unfortunately that is the reality we are facing today."

A project developed by the Pengxi Group in Minhang District is offering only 2 percent discount to buyers with mortgages.

That, however, did not surprise industry analysts.

"As buying sentiment recovered in the second half of last year, developers have obviously lost their interest in cutting prices to trigger sales," said Sky Xue, an analyst with China Real Estate Information Corp.

"However, they wouldn't consider hiking the prices either as property curbs are unlikely to be loosened any time soon."

New residential properties totaling 2.34 million square meters were sold in Shanghai in the first two months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 31.4 percent, the local statistics bureau said yesterday.