China is trying to cool overheated property markets in the country’s largest cities, taking unprecedented measures at local level to damp sales — even persecuting overzealous estate agents.
Amid a 15-month price surge in the country’s biggest cities, with some such as Xiamen recording annual growth above 40 per cent in August, municipal governments have moved this week to reduce what Beijing sees as excess speculation.
Hangzhou, host of this months’s G20 summit, on Tuesday introduced rules requiring buyers at auction of high-priced land to pay the full amount within a month, a move aimed at reining in China’s infamous “l(fā)and kings”, developers prepared to pay above the market rate during pricing booms.