Real estate brokerages in China’s major cities are urging owners of existing homes to lower prices to spur sales transactions, reports Caixin. This comes amid a property market downturn which shows no signs of easing.
Some of the price cuts have developed into “systematic and organized practices,” with some real estate agents even significantly lowering the listing prices of secondhand homes without consulting their owners, Caixin reports He Ling, marketing president at Shenzhen-based real estate brokerage Leyoujia, as saying.
In early January, a Hangzhou operating unit of Ke Holdings, the country’s largest housing transaction platform also known as Beike, launched a campaign in the city encouraging its real estate agents to negotiate price cuts with home sellers. Agents can receive rewards for persuading owners of highly rated properties—considered “quality listings” in the company’s internal system—to lower the prices by more than 5%. Sources said the policy was halted less than a week after its launch. Beike emphasized in an internal notice that the platform sticks to a principle that bans forced prices cuts or hikes.