Hangzhou’s realty prices rising, but so too is its reputation as China’s answer to Silicon Valley
Already home to Alibaba, the Zhejiang capital is targeting 1,000 hi-tech enterprises, 10,000 start-ups, and 300,000 sector staff within five years
Hangzhou has become the so-called “Silicon Valley of China”.
But that bright new moniker, together with the expensive facelift ahead of the upcoming G20 summit, and ongoing infrastructure expansion, have also massively inflated property prices in the country’s eastern metropolis.
Zhang Wei, who moved to the city from Beijing a year and a half ago to join a technology company, made up his mind in June to buy a new apartment in its Yuhang district for about 2.5 million yuan (HK$2.9 million), or 21,000 yuan per square metre.
“Property prices in the district have been rising fast since February, right after the Lunar New Year,” he said.
“It’s better to buy sooner rather than later, or it could soon become too expensive.”
Zhang said for new units being released by a developer for properties of a similar size in the area – a suburb in the northeast of the city – the average price has now raced ahead to about 25,000 yuan per sqm, almost 20 per cent higher than his apartment.