ABOUT 200 people queued overnight Saturday to buy apartments at a residential estate in Longgang which was promising school places for buyers.
The estate has 300 apartments on sale for between 16,000 and 21,000 yuan (US$2,438-3,199) per square meter.
More than 90 percent of the apartments sold out on the first day, Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.
Most of the buyers were attracted by the school places at Shenzhen Experimental School.
Also, a nearby shopping complex similar to Coco Park also attracted buyers, the paper said.
Two-thirds of the buyers were represented by agents.
Some people were using other people s ID cards to buy more apartments, the paper said.
Residents with Shenzhen hukou (permanent residence permit) are not allowed to buy third homes.
Parents have started the annual scramble for school places for their children.
There were overnight queues for places at Shenzhen Nanshan Bilingual School, Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.
The school started registering preschool classes last Tuesday and planned to begin first-year classes Saturday.
There were only 100 places for the preschool, but 199 parents were vying for them at the weekend, the paper said.
A father, surnamed Lu, who played computer games to pass the time, suggested the school introduce a lottery system for places.
The private bilingual school has a variety of English-language classes and was preferred by parents of children from Hong Kong and Macao living in Shenzhen.
The school charges 22,000 yuan a year.
Enrollment is open to the whole city but there are limited places, said school president, Jin Renlan.
Some of this year s places had been allocated to people whose applications failed last year, Jin said.
(Martin Li)
