A Wuhan land auction lost many of its regular bidders following a new round of government policies designed to cool an overheated property market, according to the Yangtze Daily newspaper. The city’s Land Exchange auctioned 11 plots on 30 April, four of which received only one bidder and one received none at all. The ten sold plots had a combined area of 9.5 hectares, worth Rmb535m. Usually, prices go up in steps of Rmb1m or Rmb2m, but on that day the increment was Rmb100,000. Bidding activity was less than normal, according to the story.

The Aquatic Biological Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Science won a plot of 2.37 hectares without any rival bidding for the relatively low price of Rmb772 per sq metre of floor space. The longest bidding war lasted only nine minutes over a plot of land large enough to build 27,860 sq metres of space, including space for financial and retail outlets. It was sold for Rmb4,027 per square metre, which experts said was a bargain.