CHINA’S latest message about the property market is simple and aimed at the man on the street: The home you’ve bought isn’t a one-way bet. Deal with it.

    That message has been pumped out through China’s State broadcaster as part of the Central Government’s efforts to curb people’s enthusiasm for homes as an investment tool. Such appetite for property has driven economic growth, but also led to imbalances in the country’s economy and social tension.

    In a week-long series during the first week of April, CCTV spotlighted on the housing markets in five Chinese cities in reports that emphasized the woes of ordinary people turned property speculators.

    One segment featured a woman in Shenmu County, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, who told CCTV that she earned more than 100,000 yuan (US$16,260) from flipping two apartments in 2009 and 2010. Times are harder now, though, and she’s working as a taxi driver while struggling to pay her 3,463 yuan monthly mortgage for an apartment she bought 2011. Originally she’d hoped to flip it at a higher price, but a credit crunch and oversupply of apartments — driven by demand from people who got rich fast after the previous coal boom — has pinpricked her dream.

    “[The bank] sends me a text message every day,” she said. CCTV said she hasn’t been able to pay for the past four months and showed her placing advertisements on a notice board for distressed home sales.

    Even in Beijing and Hangzhou, major cities favored by property developers because of strong demand, prices of some apartments are slipping, CCTV said, with property developers forced to cut prices to spur sales.

    In recent weeks, disgruntled owners complaining of losses have protested against the price cuts in Taizhou and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province and Changzhou in next-door Jiangsu Province. (SD-Agencies)