Two years ago, a residential project in the outskirts of Hangzhou launched a promotion offering “buy a house, get gold” deal. Two years later, housing market prices have dropped by nearly a million yuan, but the price of the gold given away back then has significantly increased, leading to some homeowners actually seeing a net increase in their overall assets.
According to reports from multiple mainland Chinese media outlets, in June 2023, a new residential project in Huafa Huitianfu in Lin’an District, Hangzhou, introduced a promotional campaign. Depending on the type of unit purchased, buyers could receive anywhere from 700 grams to 1000 grams of physical gold. For instance, purchasing a unit of around 119 square meters with a total price of about 2.5 million yuan would entitle the buyer to 1000 grams of gold. At that time, with the price of gold at around 450 yuan per gram, the value of this gold was approximately 450,000 yuan, equivalent to a discount of 17.8% off the housing price. Due to the high level of attention the promotion received, the “buy a house, get gold” activity was eventually halted.
Fast forward two years, significant changes have emerged in the market trends. International gold prices have been steadily rising and are currently around 1120 yuan per gram, a nearly 149% increase from 2023. Based on current prices, the 1000 grams of gold given out back then is now valued at around 1.12 million yuan.
Meanwhile, local residential prices have significantly dropped over the past two years. The average unit price in the area where the aforementioned project is located has decreased from roughly 22,000 yuan per square meter to about 14,700 yuan per square meter. A similar property that was originally priced at 2.5 million yuan now has an estimated market value of around 1.63 million yuan, representing a drop of approximately 870,000 yuan on paper.
However, due to the substantial growth in the value of gold compared to the decline in housing prices, homeowners have actually seen an increase in their real assets of about 250,000 yuan.
Some market observers believe that this case inadvertently created an asset combination of “real estate + gold,” unexpectedly diversifying the risk of depreciation of a single asset.