Kamogelo Olaitan
With property sales falling drastically in China and some companies defaulting on their debts, developers have been accepting farm produce as deposits for new houses.
On their social media adverts, the companies said they will take farm produce like peaches, watermelons and garlic in an attempt to attract buyers.
A developer in eastern Nanjing said it would accept as much as 5,000kg of watermelon from farmers, valued at 100,000 Chinese yuan. That’s more than double what it would cost at local markets.
Property firm Central China Management ran a 16-day campaign in which it accepted garlic as down payments for homes in Qi county, a major garlic-producing region, according to a report in the Global Times.
“We are helping farmers with love, and making it easier for them to buy homes,” the firm said in a WeChat post.
Under the deal, 600g garlic was valued at five Chinese yuan, around three times its market price.
The company said it had accepted 860,000 catties of garlic in deals involving 30 homes. A cattie is half a kilogram.
Official figures for May show that sales of residential properties in China fell by 41.7% from a year earlier, the 11th consecutive month of declines, according to BBC.
But the promotion that started in May and was supposed to end next week on Friday has since been suspended without any explanation.
A developer in eastern Nanjing city told the Global Times that they were told to take down their adverts without any explanation.
“We were told to delete all promotional posters on the social media platforms,” he said.
