BEIJING: A southern Chinese city is sending officials to neighbouring villages to drum up interest in its unsold homes and offer to help find jobs for those who buy an apartment, as a deepening property malaise grips China's small cities.
The Economic Observer reported on Sunday Jun 26 that first-time buyers will be offered subsidies because Yulin, a city of 5.8 million known for its annual summer dog meat festival.
Yulin city government officials could not be reached for comment.
The paper said the Yulin city government hopes to sell 8,000 housing units to villagers this year, pointing out the collapse of urban demand.
The Guangxi autonomous region, which includes Yulin, earns only about 5,000 yuan US $748 a year, less than half of what urban residents make, according to official statistics.
It said that the civil servants of Yulin have been told to buy properties to help meet the target.
Yulin is not alone in taking unusual steps to lure home buyers. A desperate developer has offered to take wheat and garlic as part of the down payment for properties in a city in central China's Henan province.
Even after steps to stimulate weak demand, property markets in China's third and fourth-tier cities remain bleak, with new home prices falling for a ninth consecutive month in May and inventories rapidly ballooning.
The oversupply is particularly severe in Yulin, where the destocking cycle is more than 10 years, according to a real estate company cited by The Economic Observer, compared with up to three years normally in China.