BEIJING – Chinese developers are counting on the upcoming Golden Week holiday period to spark a long-awaited revival in home sales, in the first key test of whether recent policy support is enough to arrest the slump.
“Property sales this year have been very lacklustre, so for most developers accelerating transactions in the two months will be especially crucial,” said Mr Zhang Hongwei, founder of Jingjian Consulting, which advises real estate companies. “Otherwise, they will need to take a bigger hit to push for better sales towards the year end.”
A Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of developer shares fell the most in 2023 on Monday after China Evergrande Group said it must revisit its debt restructuring plan, raising the risk of a liquidation of the nation’s most indebted builder.Some builders are already taking aggressive steps to entice home buyers.
Thirteen developers from Harbin, the capital of China’s northernmost province, went to the eastern city of Nanjing to promote their 21 projects earlier in September, hoping that buyers fond of travelling would consider them as holiday residences.A city government in central Anhui province gave out 5,000 spending vouchers of as much as US$137 each to home buyers, according to an official announcement.
Beijing and Shanghai still restrict non-locals from buying property and place limits on how many units each household can own.