China home sales to rise at least 11pc this year as wealthy buy, says Sunac

Mainland developer Sunac China, in which United States buyout firm Bain Capital holds a stake, expects home sales to rise at least 11 per cent this year amid strong demand from rich buyers.

The Tianjin-based homebuilder in January forecast sales of 45 billion yuan for this year.

Sunac was expanding amid resilient demand for luxury housing in big cities even as the government maintained residential curbs, Sun said.

New home prices in the mainland's four major cities in August rose the most since January 2011, led by a 19 per cent jump from a year earlier in Guangzhou, according to data issued by the National Bureau of Statistics last month.

"I'm very confident in Beijing and Shanghai as there's so much demand from everywhere," Sun said. "They are first-tier world-class cities.

"There's no single China property market we are talking about, because markets in big cities are hot, while in some other cities the market is very cold."

Sunac sold 36.4 billion yuan of homes in the first nine months of the year, about 81 per cent of its sales target for the year, according to a statement on its website.

The average selling prices of its projects in Shanghai are between 60,000 and 70,000 yuan per square metre, according to Sun.

New-home prices jumped 9.5 per cent last month to 10,554 yuan per square metre, according to SouFun Holdings, the country's biggest real-estate website owner.

Sun acquired 19.8 million shares of his company from September 19 to October 2 for about HK$98 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Sun owns 48 per cent of Sunac, while Bain Capital owns 5.4 per cent.

The developer and Greentown China are building villas that model Chinese ancient gardens in Suzhou, which are designated a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

The Peach Blossom Spring project would start sales at the end of the month for at least 20 million yuan per unit, Sunac said.