Thai billionaire, Zen-like house seller

Wen / Shanghai Jingshen Yan Minghui

Three months after the meeting, Pangu Yunxi finally obtained its pre-sale permit on March 24.

This project, which had passed the meeting on December 27 of last year, is launching 48 stacked villa products with a building area of approximately 153-200㎡, with an average price of 59,997 yuan/㎡ and a total price range of 9.3 million to 13 million yuan.

Subscription will open from March 28 to April 1, with sales planned to start on April 11.

At the same time, information about the second batch of high-rise products with one unit per floor is also being released.

During the preparation period for the market entry, the market landscape in Qingpu Old Town has changed significantly:

New faces keep entering the market, and the transaction atmosphere is continuously heating up.

On December 28 last year, Lianfa Shiguang Xinshi entered the market, selling 131 units on the same day, with a sales rate of 71%.

On November 29, the first launch of Nanchang Guanningfu in Qingpu Old Town saw 22 row houses and 20 stacked villas, achieving 64 effective subscriptions, and was officially sold out on the opening day, January 10, 2026.

Currently, both of these projects are still continuously releasing new units.

In contrast, Pangu Yunxi not only competes directly with the stacked villas of Nanchang Guanningfu in terms of product types, but its pre-sale average price of 59,997 yuan/㎡ also exceeds the latter’s record average price by a full 8,885 yuan/㎡. At this critical juncture for the project’s market entry, such pricing undoubtedly increases market pressure.

Behind Pangu Real Estate stands the Chen Zhishen family of Bangkok Bank, the largest commercial bank in Thailand.

This name resonates throughout Thailand’s financial sector. In 2025, the family will still rank 31st on Forbes Thailand Rich List with a fortune of 1.07 billion dollars. The Bangkok Bank behind them is Thailand’s largest commercial bank.

Since entering Shanghai Jiading in 2007, Pangu Real Estate has developed a limited number of residential projects in Shanghai, including Pangu Tiandi, Pangu Jiade, Pangu Yuanfu, and Pangu Qingfeng Huating.

Among them, the Pangu Qingfeng Huating project has previously faced issues such as reduced standards in public areas (marketed as granite but actually asphalt), exterior colors inconsistent with promotions (off-white turned to earth yellow), and simple decoration in the entrance lobby, leading to complaints from homeowners.

Even more controversial is the long-term stagnation of Pangu products. Industry evaluations have long described it as “one set of blueprints used for ten years”: from Pangu Tiandi in 2009, to Pangu Yuanfu in 2019, and later to Qingfeng Huating, the core unit types have hardly changed.

On November 27, 2024, Pangu won the bid for the QPC1-0012 unit 57-01 plot in Qingpu New Town, Qingpu District, at a base price of 915 million yuan, equivalent to a floor price of 18,000 yuan/㎡.

The 16-month wait from land acquisition to market entry caused Pangu to miss several window periods.

The project is located in the Qingpu New Town business district, near the Qingpu New Town Station on Line 17, with a demonstration area line under construction and the future planned Jia Qing Song Jin line.

According to the planning design scheme, the project plans to build 10 residential buildings with 5-18 floors. It will launch approximately 120㎡ 3-bedroom units, approximately 140㎡ townhouses, and approximately 150-210㎡ stacked units.

In mid-September last year, the sales office and model units opened to the public for the first time.

The first batch of stacked villa products bears the pressure of leading the project. From the product details, compared to Pangu’s past products, there are indeed several upgrades this time.

All units feature a large facade design, with all bathrooms, including the downstairs basement bathrooms, adopting a truly full-light design that opens directly to the outdoors for ventilation (as opposed to bathrooms that open to light wells), and multiple light wells configured to enhance lighting and ventilation effects.

The gifted portions for the upper and lower stacked units are all practically usable, such as a loft of about 40 square meters and 2.2 meters high gifted to the upper unit, which can be transformed into 1-2 home spaces with bathrooms, while the approximately 40-square-meter basement gifted to the lower unit also includes a full-light bathroom.

In addition, all stacked villa products adopt a multi-entrance design concept, with the lower stacked unit having up to 5 entrance doors, the middle and upper stacked units having 2 each, and each floor having direct elevator access.

However, whether the project can break through in the highly competitive Qingpu New Town will still depend on market feedback after pricing and whether its brand strength can support consumer confidence.