The prosperity of China's real-estate market will last at least two years but it may suffer a cyclical slowdown and recession after the boom, according to developers and analysts.
Meng Xiaosu, chairman of China's National Real Estate Development Group, the largest property conglomerate in the country, said the mainland property market was not standardised enough for its cycle to be measured accurately but past development reflected cyclical signs.
After its launch in 1991, the mainland real-estate market witnessed a boom during the 1991-1995 period and then a recession between 1996 and 1997 before rebounding in 1998.
Mr Meng told the China Daily Business Weekly that the length of the present cycle should be longer than the one between 1991 and 1997 due to the reforms which ended welfare housing distribution.
Since 1998, real-estate sales had grown 27 per cent annually, marking the start of a new cycle, the newspaper said.
Mr Meng said the market was in the prosperity stage, which could last another two years, but the fluctuation in property prices did not offer a clear index to measure China's cycle because prices did not reflect actual development costs.
