Gee, why didn’t I think of this? The latest from the Ministry of Land and Resources via this Shanghai Daily article:

China’s land resource watchdog has banned developers from acquiring land for construction in installments to reduce potential capital risks.

Developers must pay off all the money to get a license for the use of land, the Ministry of Land and Resources said on its Website yesterday.

Many developers build houses and pay the land use fee with loans after getting the use right for land. After the houses are sold, the developers will use the sales income to pay back loans and invest in more projects.

You think we’ll start to see a reduction in all those half-completed buildings that sit abandoned from lack of capital? Yeah, me either, but I appreciate the sentiment behind the rule change.