(Yicai) Feb. 25 -- Several Chinese cities saw their housing markets pick up during the Chinese New Year holiday, stimulated by various measures offered by the central government and developers.

The floor areas of new houses sold in Shanghai surged 193 percent to 4,844 square meters during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday that ended Feb. 23 from a year earlier, according to data from Shanghai Centaline Property Agency. The figure also exceeded the levels of 2024 and 2023.

A series of supportive policies from the government and various purchase incentives offered by developers during the holiday directly cut the cost of buying a new home, driving more customers to try and seize the window, an insider from the real estate market told Yicai.

The number of home viewing appointments at Shenzhen Leyoujia stores has jumped significantly in the two days after the holiday, according to monitoring data from the real estate brokerage. The number of viewings for new houses surged over 45 percent from a year ago, while that for second-hand homes soared about 60 percent.

Potential home buyers are mostly still waiting and watching, the insider noted. What they care about the most is whether prices will continue to fall, whether properties under construction they buy can be delivered on time and with quality assured, and especially whether new properties can retain their value, the person pointed out.

The person in charge of the Poly Tianyi project in Guangzhou told Yicai that it took most clients less than 10 days from visiting to making a deposit for homes over the Chinese New Year holiday, significantly shorter than the usual decision-making period of about one month.

In labor-exporting cities, including Fuyang in Anhui province, Nantong in Jiangsu province, and Handan in Hebei province, there is a considerable demand for properties from migrant workers returning home during the holiday, an insider from a developer in East China said to Yicai. The number of new home reservations in these cities surged between 10 percent and 20 percent in the nine days during the break from the same period a month earlier, the person pointed out.

However, demand continues to vary between cities, the insider said. For example, the number of reservations in Suzhou, Zhengzhou, and Shenyang dropped around 20 percent to 30 percent from a year earlier, while that in Hangzhou and Hefei remained the same, the person noted.

The number of homes bought by migrant workers this year rose partly because the holiday was longer and more people returned to their hometowns than last year, Li Yujia, chief researcher at Guangdong Housing Policy Research Center, told Yicai.

In addition, many of those who traveled back planned to seek secondary employment or start businesses in their hometowns, Li noted, adding that the fact that house prices in some third- and fourth-tier cities stopped falling also contributed to demand recovery.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev