An economic slowdown and deliberate policies to cool housing markets are not normally a recipe for property developers to rally. But this is China. While the Hang Seng China-related index is down 3 per cent this year, the biggest China-based developers have gained, one by as much as two-thirds. What gives?

House price rises have not exactly given up, to start with. Data last week showed prices of new homes rose in 49 of the 70 cities tracked by the statistics bureau in July, compared with 25 risers in June. That is the most since May 2011. Signs of gains, or even simply stabilisation, will certainly help developers but any upwards movement in prices inevitably brings rumblings of a further clampdown by Beijing. Last week was no exception: reports quickly emerged that officials were considering raising transaction taxes or rolling out trial property taxes beyond Shanghai and Chongqing.

But what the restrictions and cooler prices have done is to force developers to work their assets harder, instead of relying on price appreciation. The bigger developers, for example, achieved an average 55 per cent of their annual sales target in the first half of this year, according to Nomura, compared with 45 per cent in the past two years.