Instead of heating up, property sales cool down

The economic downturn is taking a heavy toll on the country's already lackluster real estate market

Chen Li, a 26-year-old real estate agent in Beijing, has been thinking about changing jobs recently.

He failed to manage any transactions after the Spring Festival, and the possibility of doing so gets more remote every day in the cooling property market.

One of his clients wanted to sell a one-bedroom apartment along the southern Third Ring Road for 1.85 million yuan ($297,000), or 33,000 yuan per square meter. The client was willing to accept 1.72 million yuan for a one-off payment.

"The price is really competitive compared with a few months ago, but only two potential buyers asked about it in the three weeks since the apartment was registered," Chen said. The price of a similar apartment that sold in October was close to 40,000 yuan per sq m.

Data from the Centaline property agency show that only 8,943 pre-owned homes were sold in Beijing in March, the lowest monthly sales since 2009.

The pre-owned market is usually regarded as a barometer for the entire real estate market.

According to Sang Yufeng, an analyst with Century 21 Real Estate LLC, transactions in the country's major cities remained on the low side in early April, with the wait-and-see attitude extending to new homes as well as pre-owned ones.

"I don't think there will be a rebound in this month's property market, and most property developers are hurrying sales along with a flat-price strategy. Obviously, a healthy cash flow is the most important thing in such a market," said Sang.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, fewer cities reported price increases, and the growth rate is slowing. In March, out of 70 major cities, 80 percent saw prices rise, the lowest level since January 2013.

The situation was even worse in smaller cities, where the housing stock exceeds the demand.

In Hangzhou, the provincial capital of East China's Zhejiang province, property developers are struggling for buyers. Some developers' sales staff even pretended to be potential clients at a rival's meeting and then tried to persuade real buyers to buy their project.

And in Yuyao, a city in Zhejiang, one developer has been so eager to cash in, he is offering discounts of 40 percent.

Zhang Dawei, chief analyst at property agent Centaline Group's Beijing branch, said the peak of the property market was probably during the last quarter of 2013.

"Sales and prices will continue to decline in the coming months if mortgage policies remain so tight," said Zhang. Currently, second-home buyers are required to make a 70 percent down payment.

The only residential sector not affected so far is luxury homes.

According to international real estate consultancy firm Jones Lang LaSalle, capital values for luxury apartments and villas in Beijing rose by 6.6 percent and 11.9 percent quarter-on-quarter, respectively, in the first quarter of 2014.

Despite an increase in inventory and lower transaction volumes, the market remains undersupplied, further driving capital value growth. Moreover, newly launched projects have achieved higher-than-market prices, which has further contributed to the rise, according to JLL research.

"It took one of our clients only five days to decide to purchase a 23 million yuan apartment in our luxury projects along the eastern Third Ring Road," said a sales manager with Hongkun Real Estate Co Ltd surnamed Chen.

Chen said the extremely limited supply of high-end projects in that area was the key reason for the client's quick decision, despite the fact that the unit price exceeded 100,000 yuan per sq m.

"We may further increase the sales price," he added. Hongkun has two luxury projects in Beijing.

Along with differing performances across various types of properties, a divergence in price from region to region continues to be noticeable.

According to data released earlier this month by Soufun, a private real estate statistics provider, housing prices rose 20 percent year-on-year in China's four top cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen) last month, but only by 7.7 percent in second-tier cities (mainly provincial capital cities) and 3.9 percent in third-tier smaller cities.