New home sales jumped to a four-month high in Shanghai last month amid continuously robust sentiment, while average price also rose due to inadequate supply.

Sales of new homes, excluding those designated for relocated residents under urban redevelopment projects, rose 19 percent month on month to 1.67 million square meters, the highest since August, Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co said yesterday.

Average prices, meanwhile, climbed to 18,686 yuan (US$2,736) per square meter, an increase of 10 percent from October.

"The November price was the second-highest monthly figure registered this year, and it won't be surprising to see it exceed the 20,000-yuan barrier in the coming months as far as supply remains insufficient," said Lu Qilin, a researcher at Shanghai Uwin.

Uwin statistics showed that new home sales in the first 11 months of this year already surged to 16.2 million square meters in the city while supply during the same period only hit 12.56 million square meters.

As of yesterday, the local inventory of new homes stood at 4.79 million square meters, according to the city's official real estate Website. A stock of below 5 million square meters is very rare in the city, industry analysts said.

Across the city, the supply shortage was particularly serious in areas beyond the city's Outer Ring Road, where inventory plunged to 2.8 million square meters from 3.7 million square meters over the past six months, Uwin research found.

The average price of new homes was at its highest, 18,829 yuan per square meter, in August amid robust sales of luxury dwellings.