Wednesday, December 7, 2011

January to November, sales of land in major cities dropped by 31%

一月至十一月,土地在主要城市的销量下降了31%。BEIJING - Land sales in 130 major cities slumped 30.6 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2011 as tightening measures cooled off the property sector and squeezed developers, according to the Centaline property agency.
Sales revenues reached 1.18 trillion yuan ($185 billion) during the January-November period, compared to 1.7 trillion yuan during the same period last year, the Beijing Centaline Property Agency Ltd. said in a research report published on Tuesday.
Authorities in the 130 cities sold 24,200 plots of land covering a total area of 1.09 billion square meters, it said.
The slump in land sales came as many property developers were hit by a funding squeeze and a cooling market, it said.
Housing sales in China's first- and second-tier cities saw marked declines this year after the government limited purchases, banned mortgage loans for third homes and raised lending rates to cool the once-hot property market.
Many developers are unwilling to buy land amid market uncertainties and have had difficulty getting loans to fund land purchases because of the government's monetary tightening measures, the report said.