Watermelons are accepted as payment by Chinese real estate developers: reports

The Chinese real estate market has been compelled to accept payments for homes in watermelons and other agricultural products in an effort to combat the severe recession.

According to reports, the real estate market has chosen to use this payment method to entice homebuyers. State-run China News Weekly reported that a developer in the eastern city of Nanjing announced it would accept watermelons from local farmers for up to 100,000 yuan as a down payment on a home.

A recent social media post by the home builder Central China Management stated, "On the occasion of the new season of garlic, the company has come up with fantastic incentives for farmers to buy homes in Qi County." According to reports, the graph of home sales in China based on the floor space metric has declined for 11 straight months. A decline of 31.5 percent has occurred when the data from 2021 and 2022 are compared.

Over the past few years, China's housing market has been steadily declining. The economic downturn and crisis, as well as measures like depositing security before the project's development could begin, are to blame for this. A house builder in Wuxi city allegedly accepts peaches as payment, according to another report by the news agency AFP.