Beijing's efforts to cool the mainland property market appear to be working, with a prime commercial site in Shanghai selling for 22% less than the price it fetched nearly three years ago.

The site in Shanghai's busiest shopping area sold yesterday for 3.41bn yuan (HK$3.88 billion), well below the 4.4 billion yuan price in a sale, later cancelled, during the boiling real estate market in 2007.

'The outcome will send a positive message to Beijing that the market is cooling down,' Raymond Ngai, an analyst at JP Morgan, said. 'The central government may defer introducing more austerity measures to control property prices.'

South China Morning Post