China's Evergrande to offer discount for all properties on sale in Feb, March

[BEIJING] China Evergrande Group , the third-largest developer by sales in the country, said on Sunday that it will offer 25 per cent discount for all properties on sales from Feb 18 to Feb 29.

The incentives come as property firms fear that the coronavirus outbreak would hit the market.

Evergrande said it will also offer 22 per cent discount for all properties on sale, including office and commercial properties, in China in March.

"(The measures) are routine marketing and there is no specific reason for price cut this time," said an official at Evergrande.

Chinese property developers and realtors have adopted virtual reality salesrooms and livestream marketing to thaw a frozen market as the coronavirus epidemic keeps physical offices shut and potential buyers are afraid to leave their homes.

Evergrande said at a news conference on Sunday that nearly 50,000 properties had been sold since the company started online sales three days ago.

"It's hard for properties to be sold online...Even if property demand is expected to rebound after the coronavirus outbreak, sales would still have a huge impact in the short term," said Sheng Songcheng, a government advisor, at China Chief Economist Forum on Saturday.

Mr Sheng expects that the value of lost property sales could reach 1.44 trillion yuan (S$286.49 billion) in the first quarter and property investment could drop by as much as 37.5 per cent on year due to the outbreak of the flu-like virus.

That would knock China's full-year economic growth rate by as much as 0.16 percentage points and indirectly affect employment of 734,000 people, he said.

Mr Sheng also urged the government to roll out supportive measures for property developers, such as extending loan repayment for firms taking a big hit and appropriately widening financial channels .

Property investment accounts for about 20 per cent of China's fixed-asset investment.

REUTERS