Cadres suspected of trying to offload luxury properties ahead of crackdown

Some cadres may have caught a whiff of the new party leadership's anti-corruption campaign even before the Communist Party's top anti-graft watchdog announced on Wednesday that it would conduct spot checks on senior officials' asset declarations.

In Beijing, second-hand residential property transactions increased by 360 per cent in the first half of this month, compared with the same period last year, according to the city's housing-management commission.

Amid market speculation about whether the country's new leadership may loosen its grip on the property market after formally taking their state positions in March, some property agents have suggested that the recent crackdown on corrupt officials may be contributing to a rise in home sales.

"More government cadres have been willing to sell their apartments in the past two months, and they want the deal completed as quickly as possible," said a property manager in the capital's southern Daxing district, declining to be named.

He said that one of his clients, a district-level cadre, recently asked for his help in selling six of her apartments in one residential compound.

The Beijing-based Economic Observer, citing an anonymous source close to the Central Commission of Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI), reported this week that the anti-graft watchdog had reported to the central authorities that, since mid-November, there has been an "unprecedented" number of luxury-apartment fire sales in dozens of cities, with many properties suspected of being owned by officials.

The report also said that the number of such transactions was even higher in Guangzhou and Shanghai. A CCDI spokesman refused to comment on the report, the newspaper said.