Shenzhen is defying the housing boom that exists everywhere else in the country. But will the cool down during the National Day week be just a short-lived correction? Time will tell. Translated from Guangzhou Daily:
The National Day golden week (Âçʼn∏ÄȪÑÈáëÂë®) is supposed to be a holiday when the urban rich, or rich hopefuls, snap up their first, second, or even third homes. Or at least it’s a time for crazed house shopping around cities in China. This year, though, things looked dramatically different in Shenzhen, the reform pioneer that has seen housing prices skyrocket up to nearly 20,000 yuan per square meter.
The whole holiday week has registered only 82 deals for the whole city, which some say is glacier-cool. For the three days before the holiday, the city sold 121, 144, and 73 apartments/houses every day, which real estate observers say are already low points for Shenzhen’s housing market. For the seven days of the holiday, the numbers dropped to 16, 11, 6, 5, 10, 19 and 15, respectively. For Oct. 3, the six units sold had a combined area of 298 square meters, averaging less than 50 square meters per unit. These are so called “small-size units,” which are favorite among young professionals or the soon-to-be middle-class who don’t have much money to buy big homes.
In the pool of totally 34,000 units on the market in Shenzhen, the sales numbers for the holiday week have been hitting rock bottom there. Despite all the efforts by developers to woo buyers, including gift furniture and appliances and discounts, more and more potential home buyers are stepping back instead of rushing to cut a deal.
One good news seems to be, however, the city’s macro-control policy is working in curbing the bubble. [Full Text in Chinese]
