THE average cost of new homes in Shanghai rose to a 20-week high last week amid strong sales of luxury properties even though the overall transaction volume registered a rather insignificant rebound during the same period, latest market data showed.

The average price of new residential properties, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, climbed 2 percent to 25,566 yuan (US$4,137) per square meter during the seven-day period ending on Sunday, remaining above the 25,000-yuan-per-square-meter threshold for the second straight week, Shanghai Deovolente Realty Co said in a report yesterday.

Meanwhile, new home purchases rose 7.3 percent week-on-week to 164,300 square meters.

"Despite the mild recovery, new home sales in the city stayed below the 200,000-square-meter threshold for the third consecutive week, mainly due to sluggish sentiment recorded in the mid- to low-end segment," said Lu Qilin, a Deovolente researcher. "In contrast, the luxury sector registered extremely good sales last week, pushing up the city's average cost of a new home to a 20-week high."

Around the city, 54 residential properties with a price of more than 50,000 yuan a square meter were sold, an increase of 19 from the previous week, Deovolente data showed.

Of this, a 592-square-meter duplex apartment at Ocean One, a COFCO development in the heart of Little Lujiazui, fetched 108 million yuan alone, or 182,800 yuan per square meter on average, making it the first apartment in Shanghai this year to be sold for over 100 million yuan.

On the supply side, about 204,400 square meters of new houses, majority of which were mid- to high-end properties, were released on to the local market last week, almost double from the previous seven-day period.