The early spring recovery in China's housing market has extended into May, as the country's largest cities are reporting record-high transactions in the existing home market.

Despite uncertainty over a lasting recovery, the strong transaction volumes in major urban markets — including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong province's Guangzhou and Shenzhen — point to positive signs that more cities could follow suit, industry experts said.

A total of 28,023 existing homes changed hands in Shanghai in May, marking the highest level for the same period since May 2021, said the Shanghai Real Estate Trading Center. It was also the third consecutive month that the city's monthly existing home transactions remained above 25,000 units, underscoring the strong market momentum.

"Demand for home purchases on our online platform has increased compared with last year. As prices in the existing home market gradually stabilize, more signs are emerging that suggest a market recovery," said Zhang Bo, head of the Beijing-based 58 Anjuke Research Institute.

Zhang said user behavior data from the online platform also showed a rebound in home-search activity and stronger willingness among buyers to close deals in Shanghai.

A similar trend was seen in Beijing, where 16,008 existing homes changed hands in May, up about 12 percent year-on-year and marking the highest level for the same period in nearly five years, said the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Beijing's pre-owned housing market saw a transaction rebound since December, when more than 17,000 units were traded. Transactions further increased by more than 15 percent to 17,893 units in April, helping bring market supply and demand into better balance, reported Shanghai Securities News.

Driven by strong transaction volumes, the number of existing homes listed for sale in Beijing fell to 118,300 units, a decline of 17.39 percent from the peak of 143,200 units recorded on Sept 20.

"The continued implementation of supportive policies has helped underpin the latest home market consolidation," said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst at Centaline Property Agency.

The chief analyst said the policy optimizations introduced late last year in the capital allowed more eligible nonlocal homebuyers and families with more than one child to either become first-time homebuyers or upgrade their homes for bigger and better ones, adding,"Despite the robust transaction volumes in the secondary housing market, existing home prices have remained stable, indicating that the market is gradually approaching a balance between supply and demand."

The latest data on the nation's 70 major cities from the National Bureau of Statistics showed the home price index is on track for recovery, said Wang Zhonghua, chief statistician with the National Bureau of Statistics' urban division.

"Among 70 cities, 21 saw new home prices either rise or remain unchanged, up by five cities from the previous month," said Wang.

wang_ying@chinadaily.com.cn