PROPERTY developers and realtors in China are turning to virtual reality salesrooms and livestream marketing to thaw a frozen market as the coronavirus epidemic keeps physical offices shut and potential buyers are afraid to leave their homes.

A female employee of Sunac China introduced a residential development in Qingyuan, Guangdong Province, on social media platforms Tiktok and Weibo wearing a white gown and waving a paper fan.

The livestream last week attracted a total of 510,000 viewers for Sunac, China’s fourth-largest developer by sales, but it was unclear whether any of them bid for the property.

Twenty of the top 100 developers have done livestream sales since the virus outbreak, property researcher CRIC said, adding that 92 of them run online sales platforms which some recently revamped in response to the virus.

Major realtors including Centaline are also doing more live forums online, hosting talks with senior executives on the property market.

Trying to make homebuyers more comfortable in buying online, Centaline plans to work with property developers to build virtual salesrooms for their new developments.

“The online sales platform has been around for a while, but it was mostly for advertising and chats between agents and buyers,” said Centaline’s Shenzhen division general manager Alan Cheng.

“Now because homebuyers are not able to go out and see the flats themselves, we will focus on providing more real live videos to engage with them.”

He said the firm last week introduced online contracts that involve third-party authentication technology in two cities, one of the first in the industry, so that buyers can sign the documents without leaving home.

Despite the industry’s creative efforts, the market has all but ground to a halt.

Centaline’s Cheng said the few transactions now appeared mostly in the rental market or when sellers were willing to slash prices for personal reasons.(SD-Agencies)