More than 20 new residential developments in Shanghai have shelved their sales plans amid a rising "wait-and-see" sentiment among buyers because of several tightening measures by the central government, Soufun.com, an online real estate services provider, said Friday.

Fewer than 100 units of new apartments, located between the Middle and Outer Ring roads in north Shanghai's Baoshan District, may be released to the local market at the weekend, a sharp drop of 57 percent from same period a week earlier, Soufun said.

"New home supply will probably remain sluggish in the city for some time even though the Spring Festival holiday, a traditional slack season for property purchases, has already ended," said Lu Yiping, an analyst of Soufun. "Demand from both investors and end-users has been affected by the recent batch of tightening policies which include higher down-payment requirement, suspension of third-home purchases, a property tax trial and interest rate hikes."

Some apartment and villa developers, which had postponed their plans, said they will not launch new homes for sale until April. The villa market, particularly the higher-end stand-alone developments, seemed to be the hardest-hit by the latest stringent policies.

Nine of the 13 villa projects, including townhouses and stand-alone villas, which planned earlier to release new homes this month, have confirmed with Soufun that no sales campaign will be made by the end of this month. Of the nine projects, six are stand-alone developments, with most of them costing more than 15 million yuan (US$2.28 million) each, according to Soufun research.

But the leasing market has witnessed a "boom," said a property chain.

"Leasing deals have been dominating our business since the Spring Festival," said Cao Hu, a manager of Century 21 China Real Estate.