New home projects drawing over a thousand buyers, subscriptions triggering points thresholds; second-hand homes held off the market, buyers bidding up prices... These keywords are returning to Shanghai's property market, and in a broader environment of "trading price for volume," finding bargains is becoming increasingly difficult. A residential project under construction in Baoshan District, Shanghai.

Around the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, reporters from National Business Daily visited Shanghai's second-hand housing market and found that roadside advertising boards from brokerage firms had appeared near many residential neighborhoods, with local residents frequently stopping to inquire and showing strong interest.

Han Xinzhi, store manager of the 21st Century Real Estate outlet on Yanji Middle Road in Shanghai, told reporters: "Recently, second-hand home prices have edged up overall, but the divergence between different sub-markets is quite large. While some areas are still catching up on declines, bargain listings have almost completely disappeared from the market."

According to data from Shanghai Centaline Property, in September only the first week saw transaction volume decline month-on-month due to reduced supply. In the following three weeks, new home transaction area rose 20.54%, 19.40%, and 3.13% respectively on a month-on-month basis.

Entering September, Shanghai's property market showed clear signs of recovery: developers successively withdrew discounts and raised listing prices, and many new projects that sold out on their debut still faced "one unit hard to find" when additional batches were released. On Mid-Autumn Festival day, the second batch of additional units at Jinmao Manjia in Jiading, Shanghai, sold out on the same day. According to the project team, the subscription rate for this additional release reached 361%, and the points threshold was triggered within one hour of subscription, with the qualifying score reaching 66.15 points.

On the first working day after the holiday, Greentown Yuehaitang in Xu Jing, Qingpu, officially announced that its second batch of additional units sold out on the day of release. On September 28, the opening scene at Greentown Yuehaitang.

While hot projects sell well, divergence continues within and between sub-markets and across different product types. However, Shanghai's overall new home sales data still significantly surpassed the "Golden September" of 2025. According to Anjuke Shanghai statistics, as of September 26, new home sales in September had accumulated to 9,717 units, up 22% year-on-year.

Shanghai Centaline Property believes that in the first eight months of this year, Shanghai's property market had already completed its market bottoming, with notable resilience. Currently, new home and second-hand home price trends are leading the nation, and the rebound trend is clear. In the short term, new home transaction volume will remain stable with mild fluctuations; in the long term, as supply tightens and demand is steadily released, the market may continue to move toward a "stable volume, rising prices" trajectory.

Han Xinzhi revealed: "From the start of the year until now, prices for older small apartments have risen 5% to 8%. There is some divergence across different sub-markets and property types. Some second-hand commercial homes around 20 years old happen to be scarce unit types in the market, and landlords are more noticeably testing the market." Example of a residential compound in Jing'an District, Shanghai, September 2026.

He gave an example: "For a nearby listing, the landlord's psychological price was 6.7 million yuan. After discovering that several groups of buyers were willing to pay that price, the landlord tentatively raised it to 6.8 million yuan, and it eventually sold."

Some low-priced older small apartments even saw bidding wars. Han Xinzhi told reporters that on Longchang Road near Haizhou Road, in a compound built in the 1970s, a unit of just over 30 square meters was listed at 2.3 million yuan. A broker knocked on the door late at night asking to buy at a higher price, and the landlord was subsequently "bombarded with calls" — one party offered 2.3 million yuan, another raised to 2.33 million yuan, and it finally sold for 2.35 million yuan. On September 26, the older small apartment on Longchang Road near Haizhou Road.

During on-site visits, reporters noted that this compound is adjacent to the high-end residential project "Manyun Shanghai Phase 1" and is separated from the headquarters of major companies such as Meituan and Bilibili by just one Yangshupu Road. On a rental platform, a 52-square-meter rental unit in this compound was listed at 5,000 yuan per month.

"However, within the same area, some oversized commercial homes or tower buildings completed before 2000 continue to face price cuts with no buyers," Han Xinzhi said.

Regarding the recent market, Han Xinzhi emphasized to reporters that price trends and transaction trends should be viewed separately. "When inventory accumulates to a certain level, say 180,000 to 200,000 units, and prices have basically bottomed out, that is when transaction volume is at its strongest. At that point, listings across all locations, sizes, and price ranges are extremely abundant, giving buyers ample choice," Han Xinzhi said. "Right now is very close to the market state at the beginning of 2026 — rising volume and stable prices."

He said that currently buyers have less room to negotiate, listing prices will edge up a bit, and going forward, bargain "gem" listings will become fewer, with prices rising imperceptibly. Buyers who experienced the previous period of low prices are unwilling to accept price increases, while landlords no longer accept haggling. "At this point, both sides need a process of adjustment, which means slightly rising prices and slightly shrinking transaction volume."

"Compared with other first-tier cities as well as hot cities like Hangzhou and Chengdu, Shanghai's second-hand home price increases are very steady." Zhu Jin, chief analyst for the real estate, construction, and REITs sector at CITIC Securities, recently stated at the "2026 China Real Estate Enterprise Brand Value Assessment Results Release Conference and the 16th Real Estate Brand Development Summit Forum," which is basically consistent with Han Xinzhi's perception of the market.

"From the fourth quarter of 2024 to the second quarter of 2025 was a process of second-hand home prices stabilizing. After 2026, Shanghai has clearly entered a stage of halting declines and stabilizing. From the current volume and price levels, first-tier cities have actually already seen increases. Focusing on Shanghai, first, volume and price are rising in sync. Second, from the monthly sales-to-supply ratio, both new and second-hand homes in Shanghai are clearly destocking. In addition, the share of transactions below 2 million yuan is slowly declining month by month, while transaction volume for homes at other price points is rising month-on-month, indicating a relatively healthy volume-price relationship. More importantly, since 2026, Shanghai housing rents have also risen, which will provide clear support for Shanghai home prices in the future," Zhu Jin said.

As for the performance of "Golden September and Silver October," Han Xinzhi believes that "the second-hand home transaction scale in 'Golden September' may not necessarily surpass July and August, and October may even decline due to the interference of the long holiday, precisely because we are currently in a process where both sides are digesting market changes." According to his experience, this process usually takes one to two months.