(Yicai) Sept. 27 -- Poly Developments & Holdings Group has started offering a price protection policy on residential projects the leading Chinese state-owned developer is pre-selling in various provincial-level regions to improve buyers' confidence.

Buyers of pre-sold homes can return them without reason or get full compensation from Poly Developments for a price difference if the projects' sales price drops before they are delivered, the Guangzhou-based developer announced recently.

Poly Developments launched the new policy in big cities in various Chinese provincial-level regions, including eastern Zhejiang and Shandong provinces, western Shannxi and Sichuan provinces, and southern Guangdong province.

The move is a part of Poly Developments' promotional campaign for the traditional high sales season in the real estate market this month and the next, Liu Shui, enterprise research director at the China Index Academy, told Yicai. The firm also guarantees that buyers' new homes will be delivered on time, Liu added.

"Buyers purchase commercial properties for residence while also aiming to achieve house value maintenance or increase," Liu said. "But prices are falling in many cities, causing potential buyers to be unwilling to purchase without deep considerations. Price guarantees will dispel their reservation."

"Home prices' recent decline is mainly because developers rush to cut prices to hasten destocking," said Li Yujia, chief researcher at Guangdong Urban & Rural Planning and Design Institute's housing policy research center. This led to house price expectations falling repeatedly, which is not helpful for sales, Li added.

Poly Developments, which leads the market in commercial home sales, has to take the lead in responding to the Chinese government's policy to promote the recovery of the domestic real estate market.

In China's four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen -- the price of newly built homes dropped 0.3 percent last month from the prior one and 4.2 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev