Agile Property boss tripped up by assault charge – and more of Today’s China Real Estate Links | September 3, 2012

Here is a list of the day’s latest China real estate news collected from around the web:

• Agile Property boss tripped up by assault charge

  Hong Kong police have arrested the chairman of one of China’s largest property developers, Agile Property Holdings, in connection with a case of alleged indecent assault, the firm said on Friday. Chen Zhuo Lin, known as Chan in Cantonese, was arrested on Aug. 30, Agile said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Hong Kong police confirmed in an email to Reuters that a 28-year-old woman claimed to have been assaulted on July 10 by Chen, at a unit on Purves Road.

• CBRE says China retirement housing still too risky

  Investing in elderly homes in China is very risky right now, despite China’s unprecendented, dangerous, growing elderly population, according to property consultant CBRE. In its latest report on housing for the elderly across the border, CBRE wrote that while the sector offered significant investment potential, private-sector developers faced challenges in identifying commercially viable opportunities. The report recommends that investing in the large but undeveloped industry, and being an early adopter, could bring several risks.

• Shanghai office real estate sales drop in 2012

  SALES of new offices in Shanghai dropped in the first eight months of this year amid sluggish demand, an industry report showed yesterday. As of Thursday, 8,277 units, or 851,000 square meters of offices, were sold in the city this year, an annual decline of 23.8 percent by unit and 35.9 percent by area, Century 21 China Real Estate said in the report. That was the lowest in four years. The new offices were sold for an average of 23,100 yuan (US$3,643) per square meter, an annual drop of 12.7 percent.

• Wen Jiabao says property controls still in “critical period” – Xinhua

  Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has reiterated the country still needs to resolutely curb speculative property investment as controls on the real estate sector are still in a “critical period.” Wen made the remarks while making an inspection tour of affordable housing projects in the city of Tianjin in north China on Friday. He pointed out that the government’s controls over skyrocketing housing prices have been in place for more than two years, and that the excessive price rises have been generally curbed.

• Chinese manufacturing continues to slump as PMI drops

  More bad news about China’s factories: The country’s manufacturing sector has contracted for the first time in nine months. The National Bureau of Statistics in Beijing said on Saturday that the China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index for August fell to 49.2 from 50.1 in July. Any reading below 50 indicates that factory activity is shrinking rather than growing. The report could add further pressure on Chinese government authorities to take steps to reverse the slowdown, which was driven by a slowdown in factory orders, analysts said.

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