Real estate developers have been fast expanding their land banks across the country over the past 11 months, a recent study by China Securities Journal has found.
The newspaper, affiliated to the official Xinhua news agency, yesterday released a study of 86 land acquisition announcements so far this year made to the country's two stock exchanges.
About 70 percent were located in the eastern Yangtze River Delta, the northern cities of Beijing and Tianjin, neighboring Hebei Province and the southern Guangdong Province.
Twenty-two listed real estate developers spent a combined 38.32 billion yuan (US$5.1 billion) in 54 land acquisitions since July, a significant growth rate when compared to 14.71 billion yuan spent jointly by 16 listed property developers in 32 deals in the first half of this year, the newspaper said.
During 2006, a total of 15.88 billion yuan was spent in land acquisition deals by 17 listed real estate companies, the study revealed.
Statistics showed that Gemdale Group, Poly Real Estate Group Co and Tianjin Reality Development (Group) Co Ltd were the most aggressive developers enlarging their land reserves over the past five months, accounting for 53.91 percent of the total.
Gemdale, the Chinese developer that's partnered with ING Groep NV, bought seven land plots with a total of 9.024 billion yuan since the second half; Poly, China's largest state-owned developer, acquired seven plots with some 6.56 billion yuan; and Tianjin Reality spent a total 5.073 billion yuan securing five land plots.
A red-hot real estate market reflected by rapid increases in land and property prices has been the major catalyst for developers' drive to boost their land reserves.
Nationwide, average land prices increased by 9.8 percent, 13.5 percent and 15 percent respectively in the first three quarters of this year, according to figures released by China Real Estate Chamber of Commerce.