A residential apartment block stands grimly in the darkness on the southern bank of the Pearl River in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province where only a few of the apartments have lights on at 9 pm.
Sources said photos of such dimly lit apartment buildings are proof that developers and speculators are hoarding apartments to push Chinese housing prices even higher.
Lu Hanxin, a journalist at the Xinhua News Agency, has been taking one photo of the block once per month at around 9 pm.
The photos show that less than 10 percent of the buildings lights are turned on, suggesting that 90 percent of the apartments are empty.
The photos were released Friday and started to attract public attention Sunday as they spread online.
Apartments on the block were priced at 27,000 yuan ($4,055) per square meter.
The average price of housing in Guangzhou has jumped from 11,577 yuan ($1,736) per square meter to 13,558 yuan ($2,033) per square meter within the last year, despite a series of government steps designed to rein in prices.
The National Bureau of Statistics said 26 percent of China's commercial apartments were empty in 2005, sparking heated debate. The bureau stopped publicizing the number in 2008.
Developers described the movement as "nonsense."
Ren Zhiqiang, chairman of Beijing-based developer Huayuan Group, said the investigations are biased, limited in scope and don't reflect the big picture.
"Our photos may not be authoritative," Internet user Shu Ke wrote. "But at least they can bring the issue to the government's attention."
