New thinking in real estate, China market(s) of the day

Who needs Match.com?

Jin Tai Cheng, a Beijing company, is offering a creative solution for
prospective buyers at its "Ecological Bay" Villa project. The company
encourages future homeowners to date its sales girls and promises a
wedding present of RMB 60,000 to any couple that ends up getting
married. The official story is that the company lured the sales ladies
with a commitment to pay 8% in sales commissions as well as the
opportunity to strike gold by securing a wealthy husband.

Here is the story.  Yet rarely is a market as simple as it sounds at first.  It seems they are trying to pair up "lesser" prospects without portraying them as such:

…a local Real Estate executive I spoke to pointed out that the
girls on offer are not that attractive. His theory is that the
developer is not making money on selling apartments and so it signed a
deal with a matchmaking agency to marry these "unwanted" girls to rich
husbands. In return, the developer will receive much more than RMB
60,000 for every girl they manage to "give away". This way, the girls
don't lose face by putting themselves on sale, the husbands don't lose
face by going directly to an agency to look for a bride, and the
developer makes a nice profit. In a country with too many apartments
and not enough girls, this doesn't sound like a bad idea.

I thank The Browser for the pointer.

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