New home sales in Shanghai soared during the last week of June, extending a rally for the third straight week amid robust transactions in the luxury segment, an industry report showed yesterday.

Sales of new homes, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, jumped nearly 65 percent from a week earlier to 351,600 square meters during the seven-day period ended Sunday, Shanghai Deovolente Realty Co said in a report.

"The last time we saw a weekly volume exceeding 300,000 square meters was in December 2010, one month before the central government launched its 'toughest-ever property curbs' to rein in housing speculation," said Lu Qilin, a researcher at Deovolente. "The average price, meanwhile, also reached its highest level since late March."

Buyers paid an average of 25,581 yuan (US$4,054) per square meter for the new homes last week, up 8.6 percent from the week before.

A total of 108 new homes costing more than 50,000 yuan a square meter each were sold last week in the city, compared with 33 units in the previous week, according to the report.

By price, about 30 percent of the new homes sold in the city last week cost more than 30,000 yuan per square meter, with three of the top 4 bestsellers falling in that category, Deovolente data showed.