Real estate developers continue land grabbing in Shanghai due to a robust housing demand. At an auction for a 20,000 square meter site in the Liangcheng area of Hongkou District, Hong Kong-listed Future Land Development Holdings outbidded rivals with an offer of 3.7 billion yuan, or 550 million US dollars.

That's a premium of 77 percent to the reserve price, and equivalent to almost 68,000 yuan per square meter of gross floor area. Some analysts say the new record high price comes as no surprise, given the extremely limited land supply in Hongkou District.

Over the past decade, only two pieces of housing plots have been offered for auction in the district, and the Liangcheng area in particular, did not have any new housing projects for as long as eight years.