Two more mainland property developers, Sino-Ocean Land and Agile Property, cut their sales targets amid the cooling property market.

Sino-Ocean Land yesterday scaled down its presale target for 2008 to a range between 5 billion and 7 billion yuan, from up to 12 billion yuan. The target for 2009 is somewhere between 10 billion and 13 billion yuan.

The company's CEO, Li Ming, said the target reduction was due to the challenging property market on the mainland.

The sales in July and August saw a noticeable slowdown due to the Olympics. Contracted sales in July and August were 100 million and 600 million yuan respectively.

Li noted that price cut is not the company's key sales strategy, but he recognized some residential projects will be marked down if their prices are not capped.

Li stressed the company's financial status remains healthy and it will not slash prices blindly.

Meanwhile, Agile Property has also adjusted its three-year sales plan, in view of the property market uncertainties.

The company expected its gross floor area (GFA) sold to shrink by 29.38 percent to 1.25 million sq m in 2008. It will further slash 38.18 percent to 1.7 million sq m and 16.09 percent to 2.92 million sq m in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

Chairman Chen Zhoulin said it was necessary to implement adjustment. The gloomy investment climate and global economic slowdown in the first half had an impact on our investors and buyers, he said.

Agile will also cut down its contracted GFA sold by 31.9 percent to 1.43 million sq m in 2008. The figure will further decrease by 19.08 percent to 2.46 million sq m and 16.39 percent to 3.01 million sq m in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

Chen also said the central government's strengthened measures on property market have triggered an adjustment in property prices and some property developers reduced their selling prices to enhance competitiveness.

"Starting from January this year, we have cut our selling price by 10 to 15 percent," Chen said, adding that there is still space to reduce the selling price this year.

The average selling price of apartments and shops was 8,081 yuan per square meter in the first half. Yet, it was further slashed to around 7,000 yuan per square meter at present.

Chen said Agile now owns 31.52 million sq m land bank, with average land cost of 604 yuan per square meter.

"The land bank can support our development in the next eight to 10 years. We are quite confident to maintain 18 percent of return in net profits," Chen added.

Agile's new projects scheduled for launch this year will be cut down to four instead of seven.

Three of the new projects will be rolled out in the second half, including Clearwater Bay Hainan, a joint development with a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley that generated around 4.14-billion yuan profits to write off its 26.7 percent drop in first-half sales.

(HK Edition 09/11/2008 page2)