A sharp drop of over 30 percent was experienced in property sales in China's major cities over the May Day holiday compared to last year's figures for the same period according to the Centaline Group, a property agency. 

At a time when property sales used to escalate in the past, only 9,887 apartments were sold in China's major cities during the just concluded holiday, resulting in a decline in property sales by 32.5 percent. 

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The nation's 4 first-tier cities namely Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai contributed to this big drop. 

Figures from the Beijing Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development show that during the period May 1 to 3, only 169 apartments were sold.  This figure is 80 percent less that last year's sales figure and is the city's lowest since 2008.

Shenzhen, on the other hand, reported that 49 apartments were sold during the same period. This is more than 36 percent lower than last year's sales of 133 apartments.

Property sales figures of Shanghai during the May holiday show a total of 423 apartments sold while 405 apartments were sold in Guangzhou, which was more or the less the same as last year's figures. 

Meanwhile, property sales in provincial capital cities which are classified as second-tier, was reported to have decreased by 35 percent.

"The scale of the sales decline in first and second-tier cities has exceeded that in smaller cities, and the situation will continue," said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of the Beijing branch of Centaline,  

Real estate industry specialists have commented that the real estate business in the country is experiencing a cool down faster than expected. 

Vanke, China's largest developer in terms of market value, had a net profit of 1.53 billion yuan ($247 million) for the first quarter of the current year which is 5.2 percent lower than last year's figure. 

The developer's revenue for the period was 9.5 billion a 32.2 percent lower compared to the company's revenue last year. This is the first time in 13 years that the company experienced a decline in profit for the first quarter. 

Because of the unimpressive property sales figures during the first quarter, a number of developers have started adopting flat price schemes or more attractive payment schemes to encourage property purchases.

For example, William Kwok, director of Cheung Kong Real Estate, announced that his company will offer attractive payment packages to attract buyers. 

"We will lower the down payment for our villa projects in Beijing from 60 percent to 50 percent and allow our clients to make their down payments in four installments over two years," he said.