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China's real estate market in major cities is warming up, with home prices rising, and more people buying new apartments. However, this is not the case across the country. In smaller cities, real estate agents are finding it increasingly difficult to survive. For more details, here is our reporter Laiming. As major Chinese cities continue to record a rebound in home prices, smaller, third-tier cities are being hit hard by a sluggish market. All over the country, city planners and investors are suffering the consequences of overexpansion. In east China's Changzhou City, a local apartment agent describes an ongoing building project on the main street. "All the new buildings on both sides of this street are part of the city-planning project. In the next five to six years, the street will be lined by new buildings of unique southern style." But investors are already having problems selling the now completed apartments. Many of the buildings have an occupancy rate of less than 30 percent. And in certain cases, it's not uncommon to see only one unit in an entire building lit up at night. According to Changzhou's statistics bureau, the average living space for each local resident is 34.7 square meters, and nearly one-third of local families own multiple apartments. The greatest potential buyers are members of the migrant population, but they are mostly young and manual workers who can hardly afford an apartment in the city. | 
