Beijing authorities vow to ensure new home prices ‘will not rise’
Latest figures also show pre-owned home sales in the capital have hit an annual record of 267,860 so far this year, representing 85pc of all transactions
Beijing’s city authorities have pledged to freeze new home prices in an effort to avoid a housing bubble, and promised to release more land to residential developers next year, in a city already scarce in available plots which have been pushing property prices ever higher.
Cai Qi, the acting mayor of Beijing, said on Thursday the municipal government will “make sure” next year’s new home prices will “not rise”, according to a report in the official Beijing Daily. New home prices have surged 29 per cent in the past 12 months in Beijing.
Separately, according to the latest market research from Centaline, one of the city’s leading estate agents, sales numbers of pre-owned homes in Beijing are now 5.7 times higher than new homes, a seismic shift for the local property market over the past decade.
Up to December 26 this year, Centaline said sales of pre-owned homes in Beijing hit a record 267,860, accounting for 85 per cent of the city’s entire private market transactions (excluding government subsidised housing).
The number dwarfed pre-owned home sales for last year of about 150,000 units, and exceeded the historical peak of 266,854 units in 2009. In 2015, existing homes sales made up 78.5 per cent of the market.