Guangzhou’s housing watchdog clamps down on homeowners colluding to inflate home prices

Name: China's ambitious plan to develop it own ‘Greater Bay Area’
Uploaded: 2021-01-07T09:00:15.000Z
Duration: 2 min 35 s
Description: China's ambitious plan to develop it own ‘Greater Bay Area’

The regulator says it will come down hard on those jacking up home prices, posting fake property information and for using sales gimmicks

Guangzhou’s homeowners have become ‘overexcited’ by property investors betting on the future of the key Greater Bay Area city, market observers say

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Property prices in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, rose by 7.8 per cent last year. Photo: Shutterstock Images

Pearl Liu

Published: 5:00pm, 7 Jan 2021Updated: 5:21pm, 7 Jan 2021

The move by some homeowners in Guangzhou to collude on inflating prices has infuriated the housing watchdog, which is initiating stringent measures to cool the recent run up in property prices in one of the main Greater Bay Area cities.

The Housing and Construction Bureau of Guangzhou said on Wednesday it was carrying out special rectification measures to maintain order in the property market and protect buyers’ rights. The regulator also said it would crack down hard on those jacking up home prices, posting fake property information and resorting to advertisement and sales gimmicks.

The crackdown followed after some messages circulating on the WeChat social media platform by a group claiming to be “homeowners of Blossom Cove” urged all residents whose flats were on the market to raise the asking price to a minimum of 150,000 yuan (US$2,320) per square metre.

Market observers said Guangzhou’s homeowners have become “overexcited” by property investors betting on the future of the provincial capital of Guangdong, the crucible of the Greater Bay Area, a national scheme to integrate nine Chinese cities with Hong Kong and Macau to create an economic powerhouse to rival Silicon Valley.

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China's ambitious plan to develop it own ‘Greater Bay Area’

They said the 150,000 yuan level would be 25 per cent more than the average selling price of 120,000 yuan in Blossom Cove in the CBD Zhujiang New Town district, which is only 20 minutes by car from the Guangzhou high-speed railway terminus.

Currently all five available homes in Blossom Cove on Beike Zhaofang, the country’s biggest online property portal, are priced between 134,283 yuan per sq m and 155,597 yuan per sq m. Recently, a three-bedroom unit fetched 126,068 yuan per sq m.