Agile looks to boost land bank by 45pc
Agile Property Holdings aims to expand its land bank by 45 per cent this year despite the mainland government's measures to cool the overheated real estate market.
Agile, which develops large-scale projects in Guangdong, said it aimed to lift its land bank to at least 16 million square metres by the end of this year from 11 million square metres.
'We don't expect the central government's proposed measures to have a significant negative impact on our company as housing demand in Guangdong province has been growing steadily this year,' Agile chairman Chen Zhuolin said.
On Wednesday, the State Council announced six measures, including taxes on transactions and tightening bank credit, to curb the mainland's property prices from soaring further.
The government also imposed measures last year to slow growth in the market, but prices still jumped 5.5 per cent in the first quarter of this year from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
Despite the measures, Agile's property sales in Guangdong during the Golden Week early this month doubled to 700 million yuan from the same period last year, Mr Chen said.
Average selling price achieved for its projects this year edged up to 5,600 yuan per square metre from 5,500 yuan per square metre a year ago, he added.
However, Mr Chen expects home prices in Guangdong to grow 10 per cent this year after a 7.7 per cent increase last year.
Agile has acquired about 4.5 million square metres of its land reserves through auction this year, involving about 4.5 billion yuan. These plots have not received land use permits from the government.
Most of its acquired sites are in Guangdong, although the developer now also targets sites in other second-tier cities including Nanjing, Changsha and Chengdu.
Shares of Agile slipped 6.03 per cent to finish the session at $5.45 yesterday.
