Tight controls continue to weigh on.....>

CHINA PRESS: Tight controls continue to weigh on the property sector, with

hundreds of failed land auctions in the last six months, the Securities Daily

reported Friday. According to data from the Centaline Real Estate Research

Center, auctions of at least 261 parcels had failed so far in the second half of

this year, with 111 in Tier-2 cities and 150 in the smaller Tier-3 and Tier-4

cities. The failures were mainly because of a lack of bidders or because

bidders' offered price was too low. The property market is cooling down and

there are tight controls on capital flowing into the sector, so property

developers have become less enthusiastic about acquiring land, analysts said. As

the sector is expected to further cool further and developers' financing costs

are expected to keep going up, land auction failures will most likely also

increase, especially in Tier-3 and Tier-4 cities, where economic fundamentals

are less favorable, the newspaper argued. (Securities Daily)