Most housing agencies suffered a major slowdown this month, with sales nose-diving by more than 50 percent from the month before, Tuesday's Shanghai Morning Post reported.

A series of government macro-control policies to cool off the overheated real estate market has taken effect.

As of last month, new property trading has slumped, with only 200-300 apartments currently sold per day, whereas the number hit more than 800 in March.

"Our business revenue was only two or three million yuan this month, about 25 percent of last month and less than 20 percent of that in March," said a spokesman with the Shenzhen Xinyi Real Estate Limited.

"We have never experienced such sluggish business as in the last two months, with business volume this month only about 20 percent of that in March," said a spokesman with the Zhongyuan Real Estate Agency.

Housing agencies with insufficient capital feel it will be hard to survive. Two franchising stores of a property agency have only made one deal this month, with a profit of about 20,000 yuan (US$2,400), while their total expenditures were 150,000 yuan. With two-months in the red, the two stores have dismissed eight employees. If the market doesn't recover, ten more employees will be let go next month; one store might even be closed, said an agency spokesman.

To attract more home buyers, some large property agencies have raised the brokerage commissions of the buyers, with the proportion between the brokerage commissions of buyers and sellers increasing from 4:6 to 7:3.

(Shanghai Daily June 1, 2005)