VANKE put no more than 60 percent of its finished apartments up for sale in Guanlan on Friday, spurring doubts that the company was following real estate rules.

    At the opening event, 465 out of 794 apartments were for sale at the Jiulongshan residential property.

    According to the city’s urban planning commission, withholding sale of apartments to inflate real estate prices is illegal.

    “I waited for more than two hours and ended up not being picked as a buyer. How come only 465 apartments are available for purchase on such a huge property?” said Tan, an attendee of the opening event.

    Others complained that the apartments were sold out within two hours.

    Vanke said it has already put the apartments with pre-sale permits from the government on the market, and that the apartments’ information and prices were posted at the opening event.

    Some scalpers at the sale disguised themselves as real estate agents. The scalpers reportedly claimed that a payment of 50,000 yuan (US$8,175) guaranteed the purchase of an apartment.

    “Some realtors told me so. And later I got it down to 40,000 yuan, but did not pay him. Now I feel regretful,” said an attendee, who did not give his name.

    Vanke released a statement about the scalpers: “Some scalpers were spotted at our opening event, which is a vicious interruption of the market. We have already dealt with the scalpers exposed. We also welcome any evidence that further leads to scalpers whom reporters and clients find.”

    The urban planning commission has taken a stronger hand in regulating the real estate market recently.

    One of the commission’s staff said that housing developers should put every apartment with a pre-sale permit up for sale. The supervision rules also ban faking a sellout.

    The property sold at prices ranging from 27,000 to 33,000 yuan per square meter, which is higher than an adjacent residential property developed by Shum Yip Land Co. Ltd. (Zhang Xiaoyi)