NEW home sales rose to a nine-month high in Shanghai in September amid skyrocketing supply.

Sales of new homes jumped 82 percent over August to 1.33 million square meters last month, the highest monthlyvolume since January, Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co said yesterday.

The figure excludes homes designated for relocated residents under urban redevelopment plans.

"A release of pent-up demand since mid-April, coupled with a soaring supply, led to the sales boom,'' said Lu Qilin, an analyst with Uwin.

"Home buyers decided to enter the market after previous tightening measures failed to rein in housing prices. At the same time, real estate developers, many of them facing increasing pressure on capital flow as the year's end approaches, started to launch their projects intensively over the past month."

New house space totaling 1.71 million square meters was released to the local market in September, compared with 810,000 square meters in August. The September volume was the highest since September 2006, Uwin research showed.

The average price also kept climbing, fueled by robust sales of mid to high-end houses. It edged up 0.4 percent to 21,230 yuan (US$3,178) per square meter, rising for the third straight month.

Wharf Xiyuan, a high-end development in New Jiangwan Town of Yangpu District, for instance, sealed contracts for 52 units last month at an average price of 44,031 yuan per square meter.

It had already sold 87 apartments in August.

Around the city, new homes totaling 199,100 square meters and costing more than 30,000 yuan per square meter were sold across the city in September, compared with 96,000 square meters sold a month earlier, according to Uwin researches.

The strong buyer momentum also triggered price increases.

Tracking residential projects that registered sales in both April and September, Uwin researchers found that 40 percent of them remained little changed in price from April. But in one-third of the developments, prices rose at least 5 percent.

Shanghai on Thursday put another brake on housing speculation by joining Beijing in capping the number of homes a family can purchase, a noteworthy move to further clamp down on speculators.

Previous efforts launched since mid-April have yet to take effect to bring down housing prices.

• volume [´vɔlju:m, ´vɑljəm] n.卷；书籍；体积；容量 (初中英语单词)
• estate [i´steit] n.财产；庄园；等级 (初中英语单词)
• yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
• release [ri´li:s] vt&n.释放；放松；赦免 (初中英语单词)
• previous [´pri:viəs] a.先，前，以前的 (初中英语单词)
• pressure [´preʃə] n.压榨 vt.对...施压力 (初中英语单词)
• research [ri´sə:tʃ] n.&vi.调查；探究；研究 (初中英语单词)
• instance [´instəns] n.例子，实例，例证 (初中英语单词)
• monthly [´mʌnθli] a.每月(的) n.月刊 (高中英语单词)
• decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
• launch [lɔ:ntʃ] vt.发动 n.发射；汽艇 (高中英语单词)
• speculation [,spekju´leiʃən] n.思索，推测；投机 (高中英语单词)
• august [ɔ:´gʌst] a.尊严的；威严的 (英语六级单词)
• robust [rəu´bʌst] a.强建的；茁壮的 (英语六级单词)