(Yicai) Oct. 10 -- Real estate agents in Shanghai remain cautious about the market outlook despite a jump in activity over the recent National Day holidays, when the number of viewings climbed significantly.

At the sales office of a new project in Putuo district, Bao Wei’s voice has become slightly hoarse. The sales agent told Yicai that during the holidays, they had more than 100 viewings a day. “During the holiday, all our staff were at work,” she said. “We didn’t start to take time off until it was over.”

The jump in viewings came after Shanghai and Beijing eased up their property market policies early last month, with the two first-tier cities relaxing the rules for first-time homebuyers, enabling more people to benefit from favorable minimum down payments and mortgage rates. That also encouraged out-of-town homeowners to look at properties in Shanghai.

A salesperson at a new housing project in Jiading district said they had worked for nearly a month without a break. “Since our office began accepting buyers mid-last month, there were customers every day until past 10 p.m.,” the person noted, adding that projects in other cities likely do not have as many visitors in a month as they do in a day.

As the Jiading project is situated on a subway line, over 500 parties have registered their interest to buy the more than 300 homes launched in its latest batch, the person added. That does not include those yet to complete signup because they need to submit more relevant personal information in the process, he pointed out.

Still, Shanghai real estate agents remain wary about the market’s prospects. A salesperson at a new housing project with a unit price of more than CNY80,000 (USD10,968) per square meter told Yicai that buyers who came to see properties were just interested, and that “only after a deposit is paid can a purchase be regarded as truly made.”

This wait-and-see attitude is even more evident in the second-hand housing market. “There were customers who came to see houses during the National Day holiday, but few transactions were made,” an insider at a chain real estate brokers said.

It is difficult to land a transaction when the price of pre-owned homes has not fallen enough, according to Lu Wenxi, a real estate analyst at Shanghai Centaline. Potential buyers are also standing on the sidelines as house prices are not expected to rise, Lu noted.

During the National Day holiday, the number of visitors to the second-hand housing market tumbled compared with that on an average weekend, data from Shanghai Centaline showed.

China’s so-called Golden Week holiday stretched eight straight days from Sept. 29 through Oct. 6 this year because of the way in which the Mid-Autumn Festival fell near the National Day holiday.

The Shanghai market for new-build homes has better prospects, Lu pointed out. Some of the most recent projects in the city have a fairly high subscription rate, showing that the market still has potential, Lu added.

The total transaction area of new houses in Shanghai during the National Day holiday was 103,300 sqm, and transactions were mainly in popular developments, according to agencies’ figures. In downtown Xuhui district, 1,430 parties subscribed for 440 properties in one project, a rate of over 300 percent.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev