A look at China's property market during last week's holiday. The Spring Festival is traditionally a sluggish period for the housing market in China. But this year it was particularly slow -- property sales in many cities were even lower than in previous years, and it's rumored that Beijing had zero transactions during the seven-day holiday.

Home sales in Beijing hit a record low during this year's Spring Festival holiday. Although there was not a single home sold during the period, Beijing's Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, says "zero transactions" is not entirely correct. The city's online sales platform was not in operation so even those that wanted to purchase homes could not. Anlaysts note though, that sales have been slow for the whole month.

Zhang Kunyu, general manager of Beijing Centaline Property, Market Research, said: "Until January 28th, we sold about 6 thousand 800 homes, that's about half the average monthly sales of last year."

The holiday season is believed to be one reason behind the downturn. Also, government cooling policies and restrictions on the property sector that have been in place since early last year, are affecting Beijing's market.

Zhang said: "It was the calendar New Year holiday at the beginning of this month, and then it was the seven-day holiday of Spring Festival. There were only a few days for sales in January."

From Monday, Beijing's online sales system resumes operation, and analysts expect sales to pick up.

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