Chinese property developers see surging 2017 sales despite cooling market

BEIJING - Chinese property developers reported surging sales last year despite a cooling market due to curbs on speculation.

Thirty-one listed property developers have disclosed their sales performance in 2017, with a total sales volume reaching about 3.38 trillion yuan ($518.1 billion), up 54 percent year-on-year, according to the research center under Centaline Property.

Most of the property developers saw a sales increase of over 40 percent, with Sunac China Holdings Limited reporting a whopping 143-percent gain.

Sales of housing market giants China Vanke, China Evergrande Group and Country Garden rose 45.3 percent, 34.2 percent and 73.4 percent year-on-year in 2017 respectively.

Analysts said that abundant real estate projects, expanded presence in second- and third-tier cities and strong operation skills enabled property developers to achieve the outstanding results.

Impressive sales performance and signals of more flexible housing market management by local governments prompted property developer shares to rally over the past few days.

About 10 cities including Lanzhou, Nanjing and Qingdao have fine-tuned their housing policies to digest stockpiles of houses and attract talent while curbing speculation.