The four-day-long Real Estate Trading Fair starts its 24th biannual event in Shanghai Exhibition Center today. It gains particular publicity as it is the first housing exhibition to take place since Shanghai released a stimulus package on the property market in late October.

The fair has drawn up to 100 property developers, the biggest group of participants of such kind this year. At the event, property developers will exhibit more than 150 residential complexes.

"Many high-quality and average-priced residential complexes will flock to the fair in hope that it will jack up housing sales against the backdrop of the transaction slump," said Xue Jianxiong, an analyst with E-house China R&D Institute.

To retain enough visitors at the scene, the organizers rescheduled the starting date to Thursday, one day ahead of traditional start day. "We made such a change as in the past many developers have been unsatisfied with the low attendance on Monday," said an official from the Shanghai Real Estate Association.

Xue explained that the housing fair aims to capitalize on the newly announced housing policy. "The latest housing policy package granted a substantial discount for first home-buyers, and this housing fair is an opportunity for both sellers and buyers," said Xue.

By reducing costs, sweetening mortgage loan terms and cutting trading taxes, Shanghai's housing stimulus plan has strengthened the market sentiment.

Statistics from E-house China R&D Institute showed that 708,500 sq m of residential space was sold in November, an increase of 41.98 percent month-on-month. Meanwhile, property agents the likes of Centaline Property, Midland Realty and Century 21 Real Estate all reported a month-on-month rise of up to 15 percent in the volume of second-hand flats transactions for the second half of November.

However, Xue remains dubious of a possible sales spurt during the housing fair. "According to the property agents, the increase of sales in November was made courtesy of a price discount of about 10 percent. Home-buyers are expecting a similar price to three years ago but the current housing price is about double of that in 2005. Apparently, there is still a divisive gap to overcome between the two parties," Xue added.

(China Daily December 12, 2008)