高价地(gāojià dì): High-price land

On Wednesday, Rongxin Group purchased a piece of land for realty development in Jing'an district, Shanghai municipality, for 11 billion yuan ($1.66 billion), making it the most expensive land yet. According to their development plan, the price of the apartments to be constructed on the land will be sold for at least 140,000 yuan per square meter.

The sale comes almost immediately after the annual realty development forum, held in Bo'ao in South China's Hainan province, at which one expert after another predicted that the realty market was cooling down.

As realty prices nationwide continued rising but at a slower pace, the realty market did seem to be cooling down. Yet the sale in Shanghai shows how hot the market remains.

And it should be noted that this land sale in Shanghai is only one of a recent series of high-price land sales. In the first half of the year, 219 pieces of land have been sold for more than 1 billion yuan each.

If the realty market continues going mad, that might create bubbles, which will be dangerous for the economy. The authorities need to intervene and stop the prices of land from getting out of control.