Out of the blue, the Beijing municipal government suspended the sale of a residential land plot in downtown Fengtai district, in the south western part of the capital. The plot, with an area of 144,000 square meters, might have fetched another record high price.
Beijing's land and resources bureau said on its website that an auction for the residential plot was suspended this week, without giving any reason. As of Tuesday, the plot received 7 price offers. The bidding price rose from the initial 1.31 billion yuan to more than 1.35 billion yuan. The parcel of land was initially scheduled to be auctioned on Wednesday. Experts believe that the cancellation aims at controlling the real estate market.
Gu Yunchang, deputy director of China Real Estate & Housing Research Association, said, "The land price is too high, and it may be further pushed up speculatively. If this trend continues, we will miss the target of cooling down property prices. The suspension may help stabilize prices."
After four months of depression, Beijing's land market has once again rebounded this month. The price of a land plot in eastern Beijing's Tongzhou district has been lifted to 19 thousand yuan per square meter.
On May 22nd, three commercial land plots were sold with a transaction fee of over 3.5 billion yuan. Experts suggest that the government's adjustment policies should not only focus on curbing speculative demand, but also on increasing property supply.
Gu said, "We have done enough to curb demand, but we still need to do more to increase supply. We must adopt various measures to add land supply or develop new projects."
A total of 19 land auctions have been suspended in Beijing since September 2012.
Copyright ©1999-2011 Chinanews.com. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
