A VANKE property project in Nanshan District which obtained a presale license Jan. 24 will pre-sell 217 commercial offices for prices of up to 250,000 yuan (US$36,232) per square meter, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

    Information published on the city’s urban planning, land and resources commission’s website showed that a 75.73-square-meter office is priced at 250,000 yuan per square meter, while another 216 offices between 76 and 85 square meters on the fourth to the 21st floors are priced between 108,000 and 203,000 yuan per square meter.

    Vanke’s project will be the first to enter the market after the Spring Festival.

    “These offices are unfurnished, don’t have interior walls, and have a story height of 4.5 meters,” said a sales associate from the project’s marketing center.

    “Actually, the price is reasonable because of the rarity of the product,” an informed source said, adding that the policies introduced by the city government in October to tame the property market had led to a delay in the project’s opening, but Vanke didn’t lower the prices.

    “The project’s location, landscape resources and quality show that it is a top-level project, so it’s understandable that the prices are above 100,000 yuan per square meter,” said Jiang Shaojie, a general manager with Midland Realty in Shenzhen.

    The commission issued a set of detailed rules a week before the Spring Festival, specifying that real estate projects that apply for presale licenses for the first time should not set a presale price obviously higher than the average price of nearby projects of the same type.

    “The new rules target residential and commercial apartments, but Vanke’s project is selling offices, which won’t be influenced by the rules,” said Yu Jiaxiong, a general manager with Centaline Property in Shenzhen.

    He said that the sky-high prices won’t influence the city’s property market because homebuyers are more concerned about residential housing prices.

    “This is an isolated case, and it doesn’t represent the trend of the market,” Jiang said, adding that he anticipates that home prices in Shenzhen will remain stable with a slight decline this year.

    (Zhang Yang)