BEIJING, Nov. 8 -- A week after they were put on the market, not a single apartment has been sold in the Shanghai's most expensive new housing project. The failure to shift even one of the flats has been taken as a further sign that Shanghai's once red-hot luxury property sector is continuing to cool off.

    Weighing in at an average of more than 110,000 yuan (US$13,580) per square metre, flats in the Tomson Riviera project, developed by Hong Kong-listed Tomson Group Ltd, have set a new record as Shanghai's most expensive.

    Of the first 74 apartments put up for sale, the cheapest, of 434 square metres, carries a 38 million yuan (US$4.68 million) price tag the most expensive costs more than 170 million yuan (US$21 million).

    Before Tomson Riviera came on the scene, the Shanghai MayFair complex claimed the mantle of the city's most expensive apartments with a comparatively bargain-basement average square-metre price of 51,000 yuan (US$6,289).

    Michael Bao, project manager for Tomson Riviera, said "many potential buyers" have visited the apartments, but would not say how many clients, if any, had already put down a deposit.

    According to the city's official real estate website, not a single deal has been confirmed.

    "We are confident about the project thanks to its incomparable location," said Bao, pointing out that Tomson Riviera is one of only two apartment projects right on the Huangpu River in Pudong's Lujiazui area.

    Developers of the Gloria Harbour View project, the other project with the same "incomparable location," has decided to postpone its launch and is considering leasing rather than selling the apartments, in response to the recent sluggish market.

    The average price of luxury residential properties in Shanghai fell 4.5 per cent in the third quarter, as most buyers adopted a wait-and-see attitude, according to a report by Colliers International, a real estate agent.

    According to Colliers, the vacancy rate of luxury housing dropped to 11.3 per cent from 11.7 per cent over the same period as developers suspended the launch of new projects.

    An unnamed analyst from the city's Diheng Property Consulting revealed there were still apartments, totalling 330,000 square metres, awaiting buyers in the Lujiazui area

    Remy Chan, national director of Jones Lang LaSalle, said the Riviera project will mainly attract investors, particularly private business owners from the mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore and other east Asian countries.

    On October 26, the Shanghai branch of China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange required non-Chinese mainland residents to apply for approval when paying for luxury properties in foreign currency worth more than US$1 million.

    The move is an attempt by the municipal government to track the inflow of overseas capital into the property sector, considered one of the major factors inflating the city's housing prices.

    Since March, the central government has put in place a series of measures to curb speculation in the nation's housing market, including higher mortgage rates, especially for luxury developments.

    In June, in a move to drive out speculation on the housing market, Shanghai started levying heavy taxes on housing transactions.

    (Source: China Daily)