Land market rallies with record transactions

Three land sale records were set in an eight-day period starting May 3, as the land market improves after plummeting when the central government implemented new regulations.

Taipei-based Far Eastern New Century Corp will pay 978 million yuan ($159.4 million) for a 6,100-square-meter land parcel in the former Shanghai Expo area, a price that reaches a three-year high of 40,079 yuan per square meter.

Six land plots in the expo area were auctioned off within two days for a total of 5.45 billion yuan.

"The land price record was rewritten twice within a single day, which shows how fierce the competition is in first-tier cities," said Du Jundan, an analyst from Midland Realty's national research center, in a Securities Daily article.

A new land price record in Changsha, Hunan province, was set at 3.58 billion yuan for a land plot located in the city's financial ecological area.

Another price of land located at Baiyun district in Guangzhou became the record holder after it sold for 25,600 yuan per sq m of gross floor area.

There were a total of 450.5 hectares of land traded from January to April in Beijing, representing a year-on-year growth of almost 3.5 times. Between them, these transactions made up 98 percent of last year's transaction value.

Meanwhile, transactions in the Shanghai area during the first four months soared 113 percent year-on-year, while Shenzhen and Hangzhou surged 227 percent and 273 percent respectively, according to Midland Realty research.