Revenue generated from selling land in some major cities grew fast in 2016, with revenue in nine of them exceeding 100 billion yuan ($14.4 billion), reaching the highest level on record, according to media reports on Wednesday.
The nine cities - most of which are second-tier cities including Suzhou and Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu Province, Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province and Wuhan in Central China's Hubei Province, where housing prices have been surging - all sold land worth more than $14.4 billion, chinanews.com reported, citing industry data.
In second-tier cities, land sold for housing projects reached a total of 1.5 trillion yuan, up 83.4 percent year-on-year in 2016, according to media reports.
However, such sales in first-tier cities declined by 28.4 percent to 246.3 billion yuan, said the report.
China Index Academy said the surge in land sales revenue in second-tier cities was supported mainly by rising housing prices. First-tier cities face shortages of land, while cities ranked at the third and lower tiers face overstocks of homes, chinanews.com reported.
But with tightening policies on housing purchases in cities where housing prices are overheating, land sales will likely to decline, the report said, citing experts.
Faced with surging housing prices, many cities, including second-tier ones, have introduced stricter rules on home purchases such as limiting the number of units residents are allowed to buy and increasing down payments.
