(Yicai) April 29 -- The new luxury house market in Hangzhou, China's eastern Zhejiang province, has picked up thanks to the release of inventory and surging demand from the so-called ‘new rich.’

Six luxury projects will hit the Hangzhou market between the end of April and late May. The first one, the Aoying Century project in Xiaoshan district, sold out on its sales debut day on April 26, securing CNY2.1 billion (USD300 million) from the sale of all 86 units, priced from CNY15 million to CNY30 million (USD2.2 million to USD4.4 million) each.

In recent years, Hangzhou has seen many new rich individuals, such as entrepreneurs from the internet and new economy sectors, a senior real estate agent based in the city told Yicai. They have been making increasingly significant purchases in the luxury property market, becoming the key buying power in this segment, the agent noted.

Hangzhou is home to tech giant Alibaba Group Holding and internet firm NetEase, as well as the 'Six Little Dragons' -- DeepSeek, Unitree Robotics, Game Science, BrainCo, Qunhe Technology, and Deep Robotics -- which are leaders in cutting-edge technology fields, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, gaming, brain-machine interface, and the metaverse.

Moreover, high-net-worth individuals from economically developed regions in Zhejiang, such as Wenzhou and Taizhou, as well as from Shanghai and across the country, have started including luxury properties in Hangzhou in their asset allocation plans, a Hangzhou real estate industry insider told Yicai. This has granted the city's luxury project market the characteristics of cross-regional, they added.

"From this year, the quality, pricing, and target customers of Hangzhou's luxury property projects have aligned more closely with those of the high-end housing markets in Shanghai and Hong Kong," an industry insider who recently visited several luxury residential projects in Hangzhou told Yicai.

As more and more high-end projects enter the market, developers tend to employ different strategies to control the supply, an expert in luxury property marketing told Yicai. For instance, they may release only around 30 to 40 units at a time to gauge market trends and avoid an oversupply in the short term.

The key variable remains the pace of supply, because if similar large-scale launch of luxury projects continues, it could face some segmentation pressure, according to another Hangzhou-based property expert.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione