Baoding property market soars

The peak time for investing in -Bao-ding's property market and get quick returns has passed, with the housing price witnessing about 15 percent increase during the past week, a sales manager told the Global Times on Monday.

"Each day the price has gone up," said Wang Meng, a sales representative at Garden House, a high-end property north of the city and developed by the local Yuansheng Real Estate.

The price for existing homes was 5,200 yuan ($837.2) per square meter in 2012; 6,000 yuan last year; 6,200 yuan around the Spring Festival holidays; 7,000 yuan six days ago, and 8,000 yuan Monday, Zhang said, noting that they are not left with too many homes to sell.

The property market of Baoding, a city 140 kilometers south of Beijing and 40 minutes away by bullet train, boomed with a large number of homes in leading properties being sold out after the local government said it will "assume some of the capital's non-core functions" in a document released Wednesday.

In a layout model of the Garden House, a small tag marking "sold out" was placed on 10 of the 17 high- rise models.

A sales manager at the property surnamed Zhang urged potential buyers to hasten their decisions.

"Now the best time for buying our property as an investment is over," Zhang said, noting that the smaller houses, which are below 90 square meters in size and considered to be more suitable for investment, have all been sold out.

Zhang also said the price is rising to a level that is prone to be "controlled," without specifying who will control the price, noting that the potential for a value appreciation is limited now than a week ago.

Fantasy Land, a property developed by Hebei construction giant Longjitaihe Group in the eastern section of the city, also reported that all their existing homes have been sold out. Buyers have to wait until 2015 to move into their new apartment if they pay on Monday, the company said.

However, many potential buyers who visit the property are cautious about a rash decision.

"We want to look around and compare before making a purchase," a woman surnamed Wang told the Global Times on Monday.

Transaction volume in March alone equals to a quarter of the sales volume in 2013, the Beijing-based Legal Mirror reported on Monday.

Chang Qing, a researcher from the Beijing-based real estate agency Homelink, told the Global Times Monday that he doubted the craze in Baoding will last, with the general cooling down of the domestic property market starting from this year.

"What people are doing is to invest in anticipation of appreciation that is yet to be proved. But we should not forget Beijing's Tongzhou district was also once rumored to be Beijing's sub-center. That became a bubble when follow-up policies did not materialize."