CRI听力:House Price Drop

In Beijing, new units at the Jinyu Vanke City apartment complex in Changping District have been selling for about 14,000 yuan, or about 2,200 U.S. dollars, per square meter this month-a reduction of 3,000 yuan per square meter.

At the same time, China Vanke has also reduced the prices of units at its projects in southern Guangdong Province. Apartments at its Glorious Palace in Dongguan are going for 13,000 yuan per square meter, down from the previous 15,000 yuan per square meter.

Moreover, Vanke's new houses in Shanghai's Qingpu District are attracting many prospective homebuyers. Most say they rushed here to look at the new apartments right after they received an offer from Vanke for a 30-percent discount.

"After I heard about the discount, I came here to take a look. The prices are lower compared to those of their previous projects. In addition, they have small apartments available in the new housing projects. These are favored by young people, plus these small apartments are all well furnished, and it definitely will save us a lot of money."

(upsound) One real estate agency says with the discount, it has sold more than 10 apartments in several days.

At the apartment sales center, some homebuyers are signing purchase contracts. Here is one of them.

"I am here today for a deposit. Tomorrow I'll be here to pay the down payment on the apartment. I'll have an 80.97-square-meter apartment for about 1.1 million yuan."

Some market analysts say they expect more price cuts as declining sales and increasing inventory put more strain on property firms.

In September and October, only 10,743 apartment units were sold in Beijing, down 46 percent from a year ago. New home sales in the first 10 months totaled 69,079 units, down 17.8 percent year-on-year, while secondhand home sales dropped 35.8 percent to 101,188 units.

Guo Jianbo, President of Inland Real Estate, explains why housing prices have dropped.

"Once the leading developers in the real estate market start cutting prices, others will follow. Originally, there are some agreements in the industry so no developers sell houses at lower prices. However, when the agreement is broken, there will be a silent combat between developers and homebuyers."

Guo says he believes the ongoing strict government curbs will bring a fundamental change in the direction the real estate market has taken for the last 10 years.

For CRI, I am Zhang Wan.