About 30 people plan to finance and build their own real estate development in Pudong New Area to circumvent what they consider to be an overpriced housing market, local media reported Monday.

The home buyers-turned-developers purchased 8,000 square meters of land near Dishui Lake at auction on January 17, according to a report in the Shanghai Evening Post. They plan to sell the apartments for between 6,500 yuan and 8,500 yuan per square meter to the development's shareholders.

At those prices, the apartment would come at a steep discount compared with other apartments in the area, which have sold for about 15,000 yuan per square meter, according to the report.

The 30 people, who are each shareholders in the real estate company set up to oversee the development, have each invested at least 500,000 yuan in the project, for which they get first dibs to purchase an apartment, said Qian Shenghui, who started the project.

"We are still accepting applications from people interested in becoming shareholders. The earlier a home buyer joins us, the greater a chance he or she will have to buy an apartment," he said.

Shareholders can choose to buy an apartment in the development or just collect a profit from the project. However, those who join later or who do not invest as much money might lose out on a chance to buy one of the apartments at a discount.

Qian said the major reason he undertook the project was to try to bring down what he considers to be ludicrously high profit margins in the real estate industry.

"Traditional real estate developers usually drag out a project for more than three years so they can sell the apartments at higher prices. However, we can complete a project within a year if we sell apartments at below the market price, and then use the money to develop other housing projects," Qian told the Global Times Monday.

Investors will be able to start pre-ordering their apartments after the Spring Festival holiday, Qian said.

Qian considers the development in Pudong to be something of a pilot project. He wants to start similar projects downtown, which he hopes will be able to curb the growth of housing prices in the city center.