Beijing targets housing affordability, nearly quadruples land release to boost flat supply
A surge in the amount of land made available for residential development in Beijing this year has some market watchers forecasting downward pressure on middle class home prices in the capital starting in 2018
Potential homebuyers who missed out on the real estate boom in Beijing may get a second chance to get on the property ladder, as an aggressive government land sales programme over the past 12 months has fed the supply pipeline of new homes in the nation’s capital.
Recent data shows that Beijing’s residential land supply is on course to hit a four-year high in 2017, or nearly quadruple last year’s level.
In January through November, Beijing offered 9.45 million square metres of residential land for sale, compared with 2.5 million sq m in 2016, according to Centaline Property, which based its calculations on data from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
An additional 176,000 sq m of gross floor space is due to be released in December, according to the city’s land supply plan.
If the December estimates are correct, the total supply would exceed 9.6 million sq m, a four-year high and 3.85 times the level of new supply in 2016.
The land supply figure includes space for ancillary services, such as shopping, offices and other amenities. Property experts said a number of variables, such as the amount of space allocated to shopping and other uses, along with the size of the new flats, made it difficult to estimate how many housing units the land release would yield.
