(ECNS) -- The housing market in south China's Hainan Province is booming, as home buyers from Beijing flock to the coastal province for fresher air, the Beijing Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
Haihuadao, or "sea flower island", a new housing project developed by China's Evergrande, was selling at the speed of one unit per 3.2 seconds, the paper said.
Transactions had hit 12.21 billion yuan ($1.88 billion) as of Monday, with a total floor area of 1.36 million square meters sold, and some 100,000 potential buyers having visited the project, according to the report.
"Deposits paid by customers from Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei accounted for about 20 percent of the total," an anonymous insider source at Evergrande was quoted by the paper as saying.
Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province have been frequently shrouded in toxic smog this year.
Apartments in Haihuadao bear a price tag of at least 7,000 yuan a square meter, and the prices of its western-style houses and villas all exceed 10,000 yuan per square meter, far lower than housing prices in Beijing.
Hainan's flourishing housing market has attracted many of the country's large property developers, which are accelerating their expansion plans in the province, the paper added.
