Developers sweeten deals to attract buyers

More than 50 of the at least 100 units eligible for the buyback were sold, exceeding the project's total sales in the first five months of the year combined, according to the company's president Xiao Jixiao.

"The five-year buyback helped a lot of people who wanted to buy make up their minds," Xiao told Zhejiang Online in an interview, according to a video posted on the news website affiliated with the Communist Party's local commission in the eastern province of Zhejiang.

"The purchasing power in the market remains very strong."

The Shanghai-based developer declined to comment when contacted by phone.

Real estate prices decline for a second consecutive month

Nobody's home in 10.2m apartments, survey finds

Yishanjun is selling at an average price of 7,000 yuan ($1,126) a square meter, down from 9,000 yuan last year, according to sales information on Sohu.com Inc's real estate website.

New-home prices in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province and popular with tourists for its West Lake, fell 1.4 percent in May from April amid high inventories, the biggest decline among the 70 Chinese cities tracked by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Slowing sales in Hangzhou are already hurting some of the city's other developers. Standard & Poor's cut Zhong An Real Estate Ltd's long-term corporate credit rating to B- from B in a June 27 report, citing "worsening operating conditions", particularly in the developer's biggest market of Hangzhou that are likely to weaken cash flows.

Hangzhou-based DoThink Group said it is offering to buy back more than 200 apartments in Wenzhou, ranging from 70 sq m to 190 sq m, through private equity unit Kylin Investment Management Co.

The closely held developer has built more than 10 million square meters of homes and office buildings since 1993.

"Many developers have tried various marketing methods to get cash back, but they all missed the root cause" of falling home sales, Kylin's Chief Executive Officer Huang Dong said by phone from Hangzhou. "The key is lack of confidence and the uncertain outlook" of the property market.

A Kylin-managed fund will sign agreements to buy back homes after buyers pay the full price and hold the property for three years, a measure that can prop up confidence in the value of the properties, Huang said.

The company raised 200 million yuan in May from investors for a three-year property fund that will agree to buy the apartments at 120 percent of the current selling price, he said.