Shanghai real estate's "Golden March" market trend is strongly materializing: second-hand home transaction volume and prices are rising together, and new home recovery is accelerating.

Reporter Li Beibei of this paper Shanghai report

After the implementation of the “Shanghai Seven Articles,” the Shanghai residential real estate market in March entered a robust “spring-like rebound,” with multiple new home projects seeing a clear improvement in both foot traffic and sales. The secondhand housing market was especially outstanding: with 31,215 units sold, it set the highest level in nearly 5 years and the second-highest level for the same period in the past 10 years. Prices also ended a downward trend lasting for 33 months.

An official related to Poly Development told a reporter from the Huaxia Times: “Looking specifically at Poly Development’s Shanghai operations, in March the number of new visits increased by 74% compared with January and February, and sales increased by 30% compared with before the new policy. The average visits-to-sales ratio reached 1.7 times that of the city’s competing projects. We’re outpacing the overall trend, and the pace of the market’s recovery is clearly evident.”

Cao Jingjing, general manager of the Index Research Department at the China Index Academy, analyzed that, when looking at core cities nationwide, Shanghai’s current level of recovery strength and market resilience make it the most active city in this year’s “spring-like rebound” market conditions.

New home sales surge

On February 25, Shanghai issued the “Shanghai Seven Articles” new policy, optimizing adjustments to real estate policies across seven major dimensions, including purchase restrictions, housing provident fund loans, and the collection of property tax.

Since March, taking advantage of the policy dividend, real estate developers have been seizing the market window to actively push projects to drive sales. In Shanghai, multiple new home projects saw both visit volume and transaction volume rise in parallel.

A relevant负责人 from China Resources’ Shanghai office told the reporter that in March this year, the company’s 澐启滨江 project sold 112 units, with a total sales area of 30k square meters and sales revenue exceeding 4 billion yuan. In just four months, the cumulative transaction amount has already reached 10.8 billion yuan. Another hot-selling product, Shidai Yunjing (Shidai Zhicheng Phase 3’s promoted product), performed just as strongly: 180 units were successfully sold in March, with sales revenue of 1.1 billion yuan, ranking first on the March list of new home sales by unit count. According to China Resources’ Shanghai office, overall, Shidai Zhicheng’s sales have already exceeded 2,000 units.

China Resources’ performance is not an isolated case. The Jianfa Haichen project in Yangpu’s Xinjiangwan City saw visit volume of over 1,500 groups in March, with more than 60 units sold, ranking first in both Yangpu District’s March and the first-quarter transaction charts. Chen Feng, deputy general manager of the Shanghai business division of Jianfa Real Estate, said that at the project’s sales office, the average number of effective clients received per weekend broke 150 groups, doubling compared with before the policy was issued. Meanwhile, the Ruihu project located in Jinshan New Town, which is also under the company’s portfolio, saw the visit volume of its townhouse products increase by 12% month over month.

Lu Yihua, marketing director of CNOOC Real Estate’s Shanghai company, said, “After the implementation of the ‘Shanghai Seven Articles,’ projects under our company saw a surge in visit volume, and the transaction volume also made a breakthrough. Among them, at Anlan Shanghai, the first weekend after the new policy, the weekly visit volume achieved a 10-fold increase, recording hot sales of about 630 million yuan. For CNOOC·Huanyu Jiuzhang in Zhenru, Putuo, after the second batch of launches following the new policy, the visit volume again hit a historic high in March, with the potential to exceed 1,300 groups. For CNOOC·Yundiju JiuZhang in Yangpu, after the new policy, the visit volume increased by 500% month over month compared with February, while the transaction volume increased by 254% month over month.”

“Compared with before the new policy, both visitor volume and transaction volume have already doubled. Currently (in the market), activity has rebounded to a near one-year high since March 2025.” Officials from Poly Development also told reporters. This year in March, multiple projects in Shanghai performed impressively. For example, the Poly World Expo Tianyue project’s visits increased by about 25% compared with before the new policy, with about 110 groups on average per week. The total transaction price for sold units rose, and the sales speed of the 50 million-yuan-plus tier products increased by 50%, while the total transaction price for sold units rose by 12.5%. The Poly Junyuan project in Yangpu’s Xinjiangwan City saw average daily visits increase by about 30% compared with before the new policy, with an average of more than 460 groups per week, and so on.

These standout performances from the above enterprises are vivid snapshots of the surge in March transactions in Shanghai’s new home market. Overall, according to statistics from Shanghai Zhongyuan Real Estate, in March Shanghai’s newly built commodity residential housing recorded a total transaction area of 563k square meters, up 251.6% month over month, with a significant rebound in strength. In particular, in demand-concentrated areas such as Baoshan and Jiading—where buyers with rigid needs and first-time improvement needs are concentrated—the transaction areas all exceeded 50k square meters, becoming the core force supporting the explosion in new home transactions.

Worth noting is that, as the market continues to warm up, signals that discounts for new homes are narrowing have also begun to appear. According to public reports, the Poly Duihui Yuxu project announced that starting from March 9, the transaction prices for its in-stock townhouse listings would be adjusted upward by 0.5% across the board, and starting from March 23, purchase discounts would be tightened further. Multiple other projects, including Jinhai Yunsu, Huafa Haishang Du Hui, and Yi Jiang Zhen Di, also plan to gradually reduce purchase discounts in April.

However, industry insiders hold a rational attitude toward the price adjustments of some current projects. A market analyst from Shanghai Zhongyuan Real Estate, Lu Wenxi, said, “When certain developers raise prices, it is mostly a marketing action they take, mainly to create psychological pressure on homebuyers and prompt buyers to enter the market sooner.”

Secondhand home transactions hit a new high in nearly 5 years

Compared with the warm-up trend in the new home market, the recovery in Shanghai’s secondhand housing market is even more prominent, with both volume and price rising at the same time. Since the new policy was released, both the supply and demand sides of the secondhand housing market have seen positive changes: homebuyers’ willingness to enter the market has increased markedly, sellers’ listing sentiment has become more active, and the pace of digesting existing inventory has accelerated, effectively strengthening the market’s bottom and continuously reinforcing it.

According to data released by Shanghai’s Housing Transaction Center website, “Online Real Estate,” in March this year, Shanghai secondhand housing (including commercial) recorded a total of 31,215 units for online signing. This single-handedly set the highest record in nearly 5 years since March 2021, directly confirming the strong return of market confidence.

Li Gen, head of the research institute at Lianjia Shanghai, said that in March, the citywide secondhand home transaction volume reached 31k units, up 6% year over year compared with March last year, and up sharply by 37% compared with January this year. Since the release of the “Shanghai Seven Articles” new policy, buyers have been actively entering the market. In June 2025, the average transaction cycle for buyers was 49 days; in March this year, the average transaction cycle had shortened to 39 days.

According to statistics from Wo Ai Wo Jia, from single-week and single-day data, between March 2 and March 8, Shanghai’s weekly secondhand home transactions were 5,709 units, and after the Chinese New Year the market began to recover gradually. From March 9 to March 15, weekly secondhand home transactions were 7,233 units, and the pace of recovery accelerated clearly. From March 16 to March 22, weekly transaction volume again refreshed a record, reaching 7,488 units. From March 23 to 29, cumulative secondhand home transactions totaled 7,732 units, continuing to set the highest weekly transaction record in nearly 5 years.

Daily transaction data is also impressive. According to Wo Ai Wo Jia data, on March 28 (Saturday) this year, Shanghai secondhand homes sold 1,585 units, setting a new high in nearly 5 years. The next day (Sunday) saw 1,442 units sold. Across the weekend two days, total transactions reached 3,027 units, successfully also refreshing the weekend transaction peak in nearly 5 years. Monitoring by 58 Anjuke Research Institute shows that within 30 days after the “Shanghai Seven Articles” were implemented, Shanghai’s average daily secondhand home transactions were 961 units. This was up 22.9% compared with the previous policy implementation in 2024, with weekly transaction volume consistently staying at a high level, further proving the sustained momentum of market heat.

On the price front, positive signals of stabilization and rebound were also released. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in February 2026, Shanghai’s secondhand residential housing sales prices, after falling for nine consecutive months, saw the first month-over-month increase of 0.2%. Based on this, Lianjia Shanghai’s data shows that in March the price index rose 1% month over month. China Index Academy data also shows that in March the average price of secondhand residential homes was 55,075 yuan per square meter, up slightly by 0.08% month over month, ending a downtrend lasting for 33 months.

Steady progress is still needed for market recovery

Industry consensus holds that the strong realization of Shanghai’s “spring-like rebound” this time in the residential market is the result of a dual drive: policy guidance and optimization of supply and demand.

“This series of performances fully reflects the new policy’s precise and effective measures and its promoting role.” Li Gen believes that the new policy works across multiple dimensions, such as optimizing purchase restrictions and reducing transaction costs, effectively unblocking the replacement chain and releasing rigid and improvement housing demand. As the policy continues to take effect, it injects liquidity into the market and pushes Shanghai’s secondhand housing market to step steadily into a benign recovery channel characterized by both volume and prices rising together.

The continued optimization of the market’s supply-demand structure further injects momentum into the rebound. Taking the secondhand housing market as an example, monitoring data from China Index Academy shows that Shanghai’s secondhand housing entered the inventory reduction channel starting in August 2025, and by February 2026 the stock listings—compared with the peak period—had been reduced by 25.7%, with the supply-demand relationship continuing to improve.

Interviewees generally believe that looking ahead, if current market sentiment remains positive, Shanghai is expected to maintain high activity during this “spring-like rebound” period.

Yan Yuejin, deputy director of the Shanghai Eju Real Estate Research Institute, said that in March, the transaction volume of Shanghai’s secondhand homes of 30k units is broadly at a historically high level. Based on the transaction volume in the latter part of last year and this year’s first quarter, Shanghai has basically stabilized the market and also accumulated substantial potential demand for subsequent home replacements. If the transaction data for the second quarter can continue to stay at a high level—maintaining around 25k units per month—this will further demonstrate the market’s ongoing transaction activity. Entering late March and subsequent months, transactions for mid-to-high-end improvement demand and the luxury housing market are also expected to be boosted, meaning market heat will broaden and transmit to a wider range.

Wo Ai Wo Jia’s research institute also believes that the real estate market has begun moving into a new phase. Shanghai’s first-tier city fundamentals are good; rigid housing demand and improvement demand have existed for the long term; and real estate policies still have room for optimization. Therefore, the “stabilization and improvement” momentum is expected to continue, promoting stable and healthy development of Shanghai’s real estate market. Data released recently by the institution’s “Questionnaire Survey on Demand and Expectations in the Shanghai Real Estate Market” also shows that 41.4% of respondents believe that in the next 1–2 years, prices in Shanghai’s real estate market will rise.

However, Cao Jingjing remains cautious. In her view, if current market sentiment can continue, Shanghai is expected to maintain high activity during the “spring-like rebound” period in March to April: “But what needs to be watched is that market stabilization will still be a gradual process, and its ongoing continuity still depends on substantive improvements in macro fundamentals such as residents’ income expectations and home price expectations.”

Responsible editor: Zhang Bei Chief editor: Zhang Yuning