In poverty-stricken Chongli County under the administration of Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, property prices have dramatically increased this past week after China won the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and Zhangjiakou.
"Property prices have generally risen in Chongli after Beijing announced its bid to host the Games in 2014. Prices in some communities have recently jumped from 4,988 yuan ($788) per square meter to 7,988 yuan," a property agent surnamed Wei said.
The value of some serviced apartments has gone up from 6,000 yuan per square meter in 2010 to 13,500 after the bid was won.
One of 10 poverty-stricken counties under Zhangjiakou, Chongli will host several events during the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympic Games, including the biathlon, Nordic combined, ski jumping, snowboard and freestyle skiing.
According to Li Jingguo, a property research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "the Winter Olympics will be a good opportunity to improve Zhangjiakou's infrastructure, especially Chongli's, which can boost local property prices to a certain degree. But the increase in property prices should match local incomes."
A 2015 government work report of Zhangjiakou indicates that the disposable income of urban residences was 21,651 yuan, while that of rural residences was 7,462.
The rise of property prices generally favors homeowners who already own property in the area. But those who rent property are in trouble if their income does not keep up with the increase in property value.
A real-estate agent surnamed Bai said that "about 95 percent of our customers are from other places, especially Beijing and Tianjin."
Bai added that some prefer to buy serviced apartments in the winter and that almost all buy for investment purposes. He notes that in one case, more than 200 units of a building have been sold even before the developer acquired a license to construct the apartment building or a license to sell properties.
Li said that "a rise in home prices in Chongli is not sustainable. The current surge in prices is being fueled by the 2022 Winter Olympics. A sustainable real-estate market is based on a growing population, which in turn depends on continuous migration into the city."