Yicai Global) July 20 -- Sales of newly built homes in Shenzhen, one of the hardest places to buy a home in China, have fallen far below developers’ expectations as the hi-tech hub boosts the number of new residential properties coming on the market, the Securities Times reported today.

A real estate project in Shenzhen’s sought-after Bao’an district with 1,457 homes only had 919 potential customers registering on its opening day, when normally it would be oversubscribed. Another housing project in the outlying Buji subdistrict opened with a discount, offering 8.7 percent off the price of a home if the customer pays a 30 percent down payment on time.

In the third quarter, the local government plans to release 14,372 residential houses and 3,506 business offices onto the market, a 13 percent and 35 percent jump respectively from the second quarter, the Shenzhen Municipal Housing and Construction Bureau said yesterday.

As a result, prices are stabilizing. In June, the price of a new home rose 0.5 percent from May, and that of pre-owned houses fell 0.2 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said last week.

The real-time market situation shows that house prices are not expected to rise in the short term, that the pace of real estate purchasing is slowing and property buyers are choosing their homes more rationally, said Zheng Shulun, managing director of Centaline Real Estate.

In a bid to continue to ensure adequate supply, the municipality is preparing to hold its largest land auction ever of 22 plots of residential land covering 84 hectares. It has also recently announced that developers which have not yet signed a land use contract can change the use of land they own the rights to from commercial to residential.

Editor: Kim Taylor