NEW home sales in Shanghai fell below the 200,000 square-meter level last week while solid sales of mid to high-end houses lifted the average cost of homes.

The purchases of new homes, excluding government-funded affordable housing, dropped 17 percent to 180,400 square meters in the seven days to Sunday, according to a report released yesterday by Shanghai Deovolente Realty Co.

The average cost rose 19.2 percent to 24,668 yuan (US$3,979) a square meter on comparatively robust sales in the mid to high-end segments.

"While supply remained rather abundant over the past few weeks, buying sentiment seemed to be rather sluggish following extremely strong sales registered in March," said Lu Qilin, a Deovolente researcher. "Price hikes also stopped some potential buyers from entering the market."

In Shanghai, prices of new homes rose 2 percent last month from March, the National Bureau of Statistics said over the weekend.

As of Sunday, 521,000 square meters of new homes were bought in Shanghai in May while supply during the same period exceeded 751,000 square meters, according to Deovolente.

Nearly 270,000 square meters of new homes were released locally last week, the third week in a row that new supply exceeded sales.