Since June, at least nine Chinese cities have been reportedly encouraging residents, including government employees, to “group buy” designated properties in an effort to boost local property sales.
Group buying, also known as collective buying, offers products and services at significantly reduced prices on the condition that a minimum number of buyers make the purchase. This is currently trendy in China, especially among young netizens.
These collective buying measures are among the government’s recent desperate actions in Chinese cities to boost property sales, with some developers in Henan Province reportedly offering to take wheat and garlic as down payment in an effort to attract potential buyers….