Many real estate agents have started using large discounts to attract buyers in Beijing. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
Since the beginning of 2008, many housing agents tried to promote their listings by offering free management fees or household appliances, but this strategy did not improve sales.
The large discounts are not sufficient to gain buyers’ confidence either, although fall is the best sales season, the sales numbers don’t look good. According to recent statistics, pre-sold home volume was only 2,790 units in September, a drop of 76.2 percent and 77.6 percent respectively comparing the previous two months.
The total townhome sales volume was only 1,579 units in September, a drop of 30.9 percent and 35.1 percent respectively comparing the previous two months.
A survey of the seven largest cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, etc, indicates that less than 10 percent of potential homebuyers plan to buy a house in the next three months.
Although the housing market is experiencing a chill, Beijing’s largest affordable housing project still started construction on October 21. The project will provide 7,393 units of affordable for sale housing and 590 affordable rental units.
As of October 1, over 109,600 housing construction starts were approved, over 40,000 units more than the figure at the beginning of the year. To avoid the Beijing Olympics, many large projects chose to enter the market later in the year.
