CHONGQING — Packs of real estate agents swarm cars parking along an avenue in Chongqing in south-west China. Drivers are immediately engulfed by touts who repeatedly ask: “Looking to buy a house?”

In the bustling marble reception halls of new developments such as the Yorkville and Lakeside Leisure Life estates, sales staff tell prospective buyers they should snap up half-finished apartments now or risk missing out.

In most major Chinese cities, home sales have plummeted in recent weeks as local governments scramble to cool overheated property markets by restricting new purchases or even by arresting real estate agents suspected of “rumour-mongering”. But in Chongqing, sales — and hyperbolic sales pitches — continue apace in one of the few major cities not to impose tightening measures recently.

Buyers, sellers and analysts alike agree on why Chongqing’s property market has managed slower but steady growth: The city’s mayor, Huang Qifan, a micromanager who has kept developers on a tight leash.

Before his posting to Chongqing in 2001, Mr Huang, 64, was best known as the man who oversaw the construction of Shanghai’s financial district in Pudong, now home to some of the world’s most expensive residential and office towers.

“Mayor Huang is developing Yubei district into the next Pudong,” says a local property agent, Wang Qinglin, referring to an area north of Chongqing’s city centre.

“But here you can get a property for 10,000 yuan (S$2,051) per sqm. Flats in Pudong are, at the very least, four times that.”

Known as an “airborne” cadre, a trusted official parachuted into provincial trouble spots by the central government, Mr Huang has garnered a reputation as a policy whizz, thanks in large part to his deft management of Chongqing’s property market.

“Huang carefully controls the housing market,” says Ms Sherry Li, a Chongqing-based analyst for Jones Lang LaSalle. “This year, the government took early steps to reduce(property) stocks and slowed the launch of two major projects, which kept the number of transactions low.”

As a result, Chongqing property prices have risen modestly while those in other major cities soared. Average residential prices only just broke 7,000 yuan per sqm in September — up 3 per cent from the previous quarter — while Shanghai home prices surged almost 20 per cent to 45,000 yuan per sq m over the same period.

Since the start of 2015, Chongqing prices are up about 10 per cent compared with 40 per cent in Shanghai.

Mr Huang’s policies are largely aimed at taming developers. At a government conference in September, the mayor announced plans to close 1,500 “empty shell” property developers, often attached to companies in unrelated industries.

“When circumstances are good, these empty shell companies raise money indiscriminately to invest in property,” local media quoted the mayor as saying.

Another of the mayor’s innovations has been an ambitious social housing programme that provides low-rent flats and has been especially popular with recent migrants to the city.

An estimated 130,000 people moved to Chongqing in the first eight months of this year alone.

By the end of last year, Chongqing had built 692,000 units of public rental housing, accounting for 17 per cent of total housing supply. These projects offer migrants cheap accommodation even in otherwise unaffordable downtown areas.

“Why would I try to buy a flat? It’s too expensive,” says Ms Xie Zelan, a 38-year-old migrant from another city who pays less than 700 yuan a month for a small but modern two-bedroom apartment. FINANCIAL TIMES