(Yicai Global) Feb. 1 -- Poly Developments and Holdings Group is now China’s biggest developer by sales, pushing Country Garden into third place, as the country’s top 10 list undergoes a major reshuffle amid plunging property sales last month as the market struggles to respond to a slew of supportive policies.

Poly Development was the best performing developer in January, with sales of CNY29.5 billion (USD4.4 billion), according to the latest data released by think tank China Real Estate Information Corp. yesterday. China Vanke remained in second place.

The data is dismal. Property sales at China’s 100 biggest developers plummeted 32.5 percent in January from the same period last year, and 48.6 percent from the previous month, to CNY354.3 billion (USD52.5 billion), CRIC said.

Of the top 30, 12 achieved year-on-year growth while the rest saw sales slump. Yuexiu Property and Road King Infrastructure did particularly well with sales jumping more than 60 percent, while Zhuhai Huafa Properties, Hangzhou Binjiang Real Estate Group and C&D International Investment Group logged an over 15 percent increase. But leading developers Vanke, Country Garden and China Overseas Land & Investment posted drops in sales of between 15 percent and 45 percent.

This led to big changes in the top 10 list. They were four newcomers with Huafa Properties, Binjiang Real Estate, Longfor Group Holdings and C&D International ousting Sunac China Holdings, Gemdale, Greenland Holdings and Greentown China Holdings to seize seventh, eighth, nineth and 10th places respectively.

China Resources Land, China Merchants Shekou Industrial Zone Holdings and China Overseas Land & Investment managed to stay in the top 10.

Thirteen developers achieved sales of over CNY10 billion (USD1.5 billion) last month, down from 15 a year earlier, the study said. And eight achieved sales of between CNY5 billion and CNY10 billion, 12 less than a year ago.

Flicker of Hope

However there was some good news. A big increase in people returning to their hometowns over the week-long Lunar New Year holiday last month, many for the first time in three years, drove up apartment sales in the smaller third and fourth-tier cities.

Over the seven-day break, the floor area sold in these cities soared 13 percent year on year, according to the study, which looked at 28 third and fourth- tier cities. Of these, the floor area sold in coastal cities such as Wenzhou in southeastern Zhejiang province as well as Dongguan, Zhongshan and Zhuhai in southeastern Guangdong province jumped more than 50 percent.

"People returning home for the holiday drove up sales in third- and fourth-tier cities considerably and our company logged a 30 percent increase in sales," a person working for a top 20 developer told Yicai Global.

However, the leap in sales over the Spring Festival will not be enough to reverse the sluggish market. Last month, transactions in 30 key cities plunged 41 percent both from the same period last year and from December and 6 percent from last year’s Spring Festival holiday, according to the report.

Favorable policies will aid recovery, market participants said. “As market confidence recovers, people on the sidelines will be pulled in,” said Liu Shui, research director at China Index Academy. He expects the property market to bottom out first in several cities.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor