Recently, the A-share market has seen a continuous rise, and even new housing projects are trying to capitalize on this momentum. On September 28th, a widely circulated poster revealed that a project in Nanjing launched a ‘buy a house, get stocks’ campaign, offering up to 200,000 yuan in stock funds. Homeowners can purchase stocks based on their own experience, with the stock principal provided by project subsidies.
When reporters consulted the project sales staff, they were informed that the campaign has ended, but there will be other promotional activities in the future. “In fact, these activities are equivalent to a 200,000 yuan discount on the housing price,” said a local real estate broker manager. In order to stimulate sales, developers are now employing various creative promotional tactics, and they are adept at capitalizing on hot topics. Previously, reporters found that many new housing projects introduced a ‘buy a house, get gold’ campaign. “The gold market has been booming this year, and developers are really good at ‘seizing hot spots,’ using such methods to offer indirect discounts,” said a homebuyer. Reporters also discovered that many developers are now offering ‘grand gifts’ on top of existing discounts to attract homebuyers, such as the latest brand electric vehicles. In the past, the ‘barter’ in the real estate market seemed to be very popular, with not only ‘garlic for housing’ but also ‘watermelon for housing’. Regarding the various promotional tactics of real estate companies, reporters randomly interviewed several homebuyers, who all expressed a sense of novelty but were skeptical about the authenticity of the promotions. Whether it is discounting or innovative promotions, the goal of developers is to accelerate inventory turnover, so they can only be innovative in marketing methods. Some analysts have said that the background of developers’ innovative promotions is related to the ‘price limit’ policy for new houses in some cities to a certain extent. Due to changes in market transactions or the ‘inflated’ price limits, developers choose innovative promotions to stimulate buyers to enter the market, improve performance, and it seems reasonable to have disruptive innovative marketing. However, all marketing activities should be based on the principle of a win-win situation, bringing tangible benefits to homebuyers and setting a good example for the market to avoid financial risks. Regarding the future direction of the real estate market, Xu Yuejin, the deputy director of research at the China Index Research Institute, said that the traditional peak season of ‘Golden September’ has started quietly, with long-term factors such as residents’ income expectations not showing significant improvement, and the wait-and-see sentiment is still heavy. At the same time, affected by the reduction in supply, the new housing market is under pressure, while the second-hand housing market in key cities remains active under the ‘price for volume’ strategy. From a trend perspective, it is expected that real estate policies will be optimized at the end of September, and with policy support, market transactions are expected to pick up in the fourth quarter.
