In China, the real estate market continues to be in a slump, with the once-appealing “Evergrande Venetian on the Sea” in Qidong, Jiangsu, known for its large seaside resort community, seeing a noticeable drop in the listing prices of some second-hand properties. In the local second-hand housing market, the listing prices of some 60-70 square meter residences have dropped to tens of thousands of yuan, sparking widespread attention.
According to the listing information on the real estate information website “Happiness Village,” the selling price of a 61-square-meter residence is only 166,000 yuan, with a unit price of about 2,721 yuan per square meter; a 60-square-meter residence is priced at 166,000 yuan, with a unit price of about 2,767 yuan; a 109-square-meter residence is priced at 300,000 yuan, with a unit price of about 2,752 yuan; and a 140-square-meter residence is priced at 430,000 yuan, with a unit price of about 3,071 yuan.
On October 5th, the topic labeled “Evergrande Venice houses drop to thirteen to fourteen thousand” surged to the top of Weibo’s hot search list.
A blogger claiming to be a junior accountant at a real estate company under the username “Chasing the Sun Traveling” stated, “Currently, the listing prices of small-sized residences of 60-70 square meters in the market have indeed fallen into the range of 130,000 to 190,000 yuan in total, equivalent to unit prices of about 2,000 to 3,000 yuan per square meter, and some distressed properties are even lower.”
A blogger who claims to be a real estate expert with the username “Shanghai Real Estate Many” said, “The property market has fallen back a bit, this price is only the auction price of small-sized units, it’s small money, unaffordable for Shanghai, but it’s hard to see another big drop here. However, 140,000 for a 50-60 square meter unit is much better than Hegang. At least it’s not as cold in autumn and winter, and you can find work in Shanghai Nantong and come home on weekends.”
Some netizens commented, “We visited this property before, the scale of this development is really huge, many people from Shanghai come to buy houses here, my mom thought the environment looked good and said she would be willing to buy and live here. I said this place is too far, the sea breeze in winter is chilling, it takes 40 minutes to drive to the city center, and an hour and a half to get to Shanghai, it’s too far. Many seaside cities have built these resort homes, they were popular when prices were high, but now that prices are low, no one is interested.”
“The Evergrande Venice project experienced a drop in some housing prices to thirteen to fourteen thousand, primarily due to the bursting of the early speculative bubble. Situated in the outskirts of Qidong, the project focuses on the concept of eco-tourism around Shanghai, attracting a large number of investors. It is far from the main urban area, inconvenient for commuting, with weak education and medical facilities, and lacking essential demand from the population.”
“After Evergrande’s debt explosion, market confidence plummeted significantly. The huge volume of units in the community has led many investment property owners to rush to cut losses and sell at low prices. Eco-tourism homes themselves have a weak living nature, with low occupancy rates. Coupled with the overall cooling of the property market, the supply-demand imbalance has resulted in property prices returning to their true value. It should be noted that the low prices mostly refer to the transaction prices of a few small-sized units and auctioned properties.”
The Evergrande Venetian on the Sea project is located in the Yuan Tuo Jiao Scenic Area in Qidong, encompassing a large integrated tourism resort residential area that combines hotels, conferences, dining, entertainment, sports, health care, and commercial facilities. The total planned area of the project covers 8,967.9 mu, with a total construction area of approximately 11.95 million square meters, once considered by the Evergrande Group as a flagship product of its eco-tourism sector.
The project’s selling points include the ocean view, vacation leisure, and large supporting facilities, which had attracted many homebuyers from Shanghai and surrounding cities, with some owners using them for vacation, retirement, or investment purposes.