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Property prices soared 24% in 2010: Research

By Gao Yuan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-01-04 15:42

China's property prices soared by almost 24 percent in 2010, Guangzhou Daily reported Tuesday, citing data from an unofficial research report.

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The 30 major developers' residential-building sales have reached to about 870 billion yuan ($132 billion), with 84.5 million square meters (sq m) of property sold. That means the average price has reached 10,286.4 yuan a sq m, up by 23.98 percent from 2009, the report said.

The data also showed that China's top six developers' sales volume has exceeded 50 billion yuan each, while the other four have joined the 30-billion-yuan club during the past year.

According to the report, China Vanke Co Ltd's 102.6 billion-yuan sales performance topped the sales-volume list with 8.5 million sq m of homes sold.

The developers' financing chains are still robust at present, the report said. Ren Zhiqiang, chairman of the Beijing-based Huayuan Real Estate Co Ltd, said that even if all the financing channels were cut, developers would hold out until June this year with ample cash in hand.

"The government will come up with more control and adjustment policies towards the real estate industry in 2011", Ren said.

An anonymous developer in Guangzhou told the newspaper that if the government implements harsher measures to curb property prices in the future, some relatively small companies might suffer losses in the second half of the year.