Recently, the official website of Haikou City in Hainan Province has displayed listings for “zero yuan houses” and “one hundred yuan houses”, leading to suspicions among netizens that these are false housing information.
According to a report by the “China Real Estate News” on September 11, several netizens have recently disclosed to the media that when browsing second-hand housing information in Haikou City, they came across many properties at extremely low prices. A Mr. Wu mentioned, “These ‘ultra-low-priced houses’ include zero yuan houses, 100 yuan houses, and 200 yuan houses…” These listings are all posted on the residential and real estate information website of Haikou City, which is organized by the Haikou Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau.
When Mr. Wu and other potential buyers contacted the “homeowners” of these properties, they were told that the houses had already been sold, with some homeowners expressing ignorance about the listings.
The “China Real Estate News” confirmed the existence of the phenomenon of ultra-low-priced houses reported by netizens. A search on the website for second-hand housing listings revealed that as of the morning of September 9, there were a total of 931 second-hand housing listings on the website, including a significant number of listings for “zero yuan houses” and “100 yuan houses”.
Mr. Wu believes that the official website hosted by government departments is filled with a large amount of such housing information, causing damage to the authority and seriousness of the official website. Some buyers also stated, “Even though the properties are still listed online, when calling, they say the house has already been sold, giving the impression of false housing information.”
On the morning of September 9, the relevant department head of the Haikou Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau of the CPC stated that the prices listed for second-hand housing on the website are filled in by users personally, constituting a market behavior, but all listings are verified and deemed true and reliable. Regarding the situation of second-hand houses being “sold without being delisted”, the official mentioned that it might be a case of the sellers engaging in “fake selling”.
In recent years, the prices of second-hand houses in the vast majority of cities in mainland China have been continuously declining, and Haikou City, the capital of Hainan Province, is no exception. According to the latest data from Beike, in the just-ended August, the average transaction price of second-hand houses in Haikou was only 12,900 yuan per square meter, a decrease of about 800 yuan per square meter compared to July, with a month-on-month decline of about 6%; compared to the same period last year, it decreased by 2,500 yuan per square meter. In August, the average price of second-hand houses in Haikou fell back to the level of March 2018, hitting a new low in nearly seven years.
It is reported that the Haikou Residential and Real Estate Information Network is an important platform for the local government to publish announcements, conduct online services, announce new housing projects, and list second-hand houses.