Vanke and Evergrande Revenues Drop as China Market Suffers

Market leading China real estate developer Vanke saw its sales revenues drop 30 percent in December compared to the same month last year, the fifth straight month the home seller has seen declining income figures.

At the same time, the nation’s number two developer, Evergrande also saw a major drop in sales reporting on January 4th that its December revenue was down 50 percent on a year-on-year basis.

According to a recent Reuters report,

China Vanke said in a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Wednesday its preliminary December property sales reached 5.82 billion yuan ($924.7 million).

Previous data showed its property sales in December 2010 were 8.35 billion yuan, resulting in a year-on-year drop of 30.3 percent against 35.6 percent in November.

In 2011, the company’s property sales rose 12.4 percent from the previous year to 121.5 billion yuan, missing the widely reported target of 140 billion.

Vanke is normally the first of China’s leading developers to announce its results, so the company performance is often used as a harbinger of what the market in general can expect.

Based on the struggles of the major developers and the government’s recent statement regarding maintaining strict controls on the property market, most observers predict continuing fall prices in China’s residential real estate markets in 2012.