Hainan property cools after new year
After skyrocketing before the new year, housing prices on China's southernmost island province of Hainan, have started to stabilize and even slide. During the new year festival, would-be home buyers who carried stacks of cash to the tropical island, suddenly found the real estate wind quickly blowing in the other direction.
Some complexes in the popular tourist city of Sanya, started to offer discounts after witnessing a sharp drop in buyers who were no longer willing to pay a price 100 percent higher than just two months before. A two-percent- discount or 100 thousand yuan price cut doesn't sound like much, but it does show that Hainan's property craze may have quickly reached its peak.
Last year, the central government unveiled an ambitious blueprint for transforming the country's southernmost province into a top international travel destination by 2020. The news quickly sent the island's property prices to feverish levels.