The annual Labour Day holiday break is traditionally one of the busiest periods for the property market on the mainland as developers try to capitalise on the holiday spirit to boost sales.
But in many cities, this year was different.
Holiday sales were not encouraging in many cities, said analysts, with several reporting year-on-year declines. And for developers, if not buyers, the outlook was gloomy, they added, with continuous price cuts likely in the months ahead.
'Many sales personnel indicated that sales over the Labour Day holidays [April 29 to May 1] were better than during the previous week,' said Alan Jin, a Mizuho Securities analyst.
'However, when compared with the holiday period last year, quite a number said sales were down.'
Jin was commenting after visiting dozens of mainland projects last week to try to get a sense of the strength of the housing market after the Labour Day Holidays.