Anna Zhao

    anna.whizh@yahoo.com

    VISITORS are scarce at Shenzhen International Real Estate Expo, which wraps up today at Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, as the expo transforms from an annual housing fair into a platform focusing on land trade.

    With a goal of becoming “the largest expo for land resources,” this year’s event has seen very limited participation from real estate developers. The only three local real estate developers — Shenzhen Airport Real Estate, MTR Property Development Shenzhen and New World Real Estate — are seeking brand exposure more than home sales with their presence.

    Predominant exhibitors are more than 60 Chinese mainland government land resource offices and overseas real estate developers.

    However, pavilions exhibiting land resources were rarely visited. A staff member from Chongqing Land Group said they had inked three deals Tuesday, a much better result than they had expected.

    Exhibitors presented more than 200 home developments from 10 foreign countries, such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Britain, Portugal and the U.S., intending to allure mainland investors to the expo. The Thailand Pavilion, with four developers, became a major attraction for the scant number of visitors, as they touted permanent ownership and fine upholstery at their properties, which have an average price of 25,000 yuan (US$4,071) per square meter in downtown areas and 10,000 yuan in suburbs. Two Chinese banks, Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, are also present to provide home loans for overseas purchases.

    The expo’s organizer, Shenzhen Land and Housing Trade Center, said the expo intends to bridge the information gap between real estate investors and land owners so that those with capital and land resources can find each other.

    “The expo will lessen its role as a domestic trading platform, but will be upgraded into a professional platform contributing to communication within the real estate industry and promoting integration of resources like capital, technology, management, talent and service that are necessary for the country’s urbanization,” a spokesperson for the trade center said.

    Song Ding, director of the tourism and real estate research center of China Development Institute, said that a major reason for the transformation is that it has lost its value and appeal for both homebuyers and property sellers, as the two parties can easily communicate information about homes at very low cost these days. “It’s natural that home developers have withdrawn from the fair since they reap a dwindling profit from the platform. Meanwhile, homebuyers no longer have to rely on the fair for information about homes,” Song said.

    Li Yaozhi, president of Centaline Property in Southeast China, said that a major change to the real estate expo is that it is now focused on attracting real estate developers and land traders, rather than ordinary homebuyers, which also underlies its decreasing popularity this year.

    Li said the expo could become a good platform for developers to get information on land resources, but whether it will grow in influence remains closely related to the overall real estate market in China.