A prime residential site in Beijing yesterday became the most expensive site in the capital in terms of floor area, three days after Premier Wen Jiabao reaffirmed that cooling measures would continue.
Sinobo Group, a private local developer, won the Haidian site in a land auction with the 46th bid of 2.63 billion yuan (HK$3.21 billion), or 33,831 yuan per square metre. This surpassed the previous record for a residential site, in Shunyi district, which sold for 29,859 yuan per square metre in 2009.
The developer's offer included allocating 16,400 square metres of floor area for subsidised housing. Excluding this area, David Zhang, a director of research at Centaline China in Beijing, estimated the land price was 41,500 yuan per square metre, making it the most expensive residential site in the country.
'The premier's speech had limited impact on the auction or the property market, as the government did not launch any new cooling measures,' Zhang said.
The local government has introduced subsidised housing requirements in an attempt to lower land prices.
Raymond Wang, a director at DTZ in Beijing, said bidding on the site was aggressive since it is in a good location. Longfor Properties, Overseas Chinese Town and Sunac China Holdings joined the auction.