Remember all of those pissed Chinese property investor in 2011? They’re back. From the WSJ:
After a four-year campaign by the government to cool spiraling property prices, rises in home prices are starting to slow and in some smaller cities they are weakening…weaker economic growth, slower home sales and rising volumes of unsold houses have convinced developers in a number of cities to cut prices to raise cash quickly.
…According to property agency Soufun Holdings, Wharf cut prices of 20 apartments in the project to 8,200 yuan ($1,317) per square meter, down from the average 11,000 yuan per square meter it recorded in recent months.
…Groups of angry homeowners put up banners and demanded their money back after Hong Kong-listed property developer Wharf Ltd. cut prices.
Around 20 homeowners picketed outside a property showroom in Changzhou Saturday, demanding to meet executives of the developer. They said they wanted their money back after prices at the project dropped.
Meanwhile, there was also a small disturbance at a second project called Ambassador House in the same city after the same developer cut prices there.
Furniture at the showroom of Wharf’s Ambassador House was knocked over and the wooden stands for advertisements for the homes were flung on top of a model of the project.
Others said that as many as 100 people who had bought homes at the project had vented their frustrations outside the showroom over the past week.
“Wharf, give us justice. Return us our hard earned money,” read one of the banners, held up on bamboo poles outside the Phoenix Lake Garden showroom of a project for mid- to high-end apartments and villas.
“We aren’t speculators. We just want an explanation from the developer,” said one 35-year-old home buyer, who said he had bought an apartment and gave his surname as Wu.”This is very unfair.”
We’re all speculators now.
