Most Chinese cities shrug off property cooling measures during holiday week
Jinan, Nanchang, Nanning and Guangzhou are among cities where sales defied new policies aimed at curbing home buyers’ enthusiasm
A flurry of fresh tightening policies during the National Day holiday period has so far failed to dampen home buyers’ enthusiasm in most Chinese cities, as looser credit conditions and a dearth of high-yielding assets remain.
The property markets in many second-tier cities defied the new wave of curbing measures, and in some cases even saw prices surge, according to their turnover data in the first week of October. However, home sales in a few cities that had rolled out stronger curbing measures at an earlier stage, have fallen sharply. These include Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen and Nanjing.
As long as credit policy remains loose, demand is there because money has nowhere else to go
A property fever has gripped the mainland market since the second half of 2015, doubling home prices in many cities and prompting municipal governments across China to impose the most intensive market curbs since 2011. Starting with Beijing on the eve of National Day, more than 10 cities imposed restrictive measures ranging from raising down-payment requirements to barring non-local buyers in the space of a week.
Including those that had already introduced cooling measures, a total of 21 cities now have buying restrictions in place, a drastic increase from just a month ago when just eight cities had them.
However, there is no clear sign of dented fervour in many second-tier cities, at least for now.
In Jinan, Nanchang, Nanning and Guangzhou, all of which have imposed tightening measures, property sales during the first seven days of October surged by between 170 per cent and 454 per cent compared with the same period a year ago, according to China Real Estate Information Corporation(CRIC).
