Economy
Housing market expected to cool under strict purchasing limits
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-02-23 17:30
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BEIJING - China's surging housing market is expected to cool, at least for a while, as a new package of policies that include purchasing restrictions, property taxes, and the availability of government-subsidized flats are implemented nationwide, analysts say.
With the government's latest tightening measure, more than a dozen Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin, have capped the number of apartments a family can buy, especially raising the level of difficulty for non-residents to buy apartments for investment.
The central government also raised the down-payment requirement for second home purchases and the lending rates, while Chongqing and Shanghai introduced the country's first-ever property taxes.
Nie Meisheng, the Director of China Real Estate Chamber of Commerce, said that the new package of policies puts the brakes on the real estate sector. Home sales are expected to drop significantly, but the prices are likely to stay steady.
"It is necessary to implement tightening measures as bubbles have appeared in the housing market," Nie said.
Song Ding, a specialist in real estate market analysis with China Academy of Comprehensive Development, said that the focus of this round of tightening seems to have shifted from curbing housing speculation to curbing the general demand for apartments.
The goal is to tightly control the amount of capital entering the property market in a bid to prevent bubbles and an ensuing collapse that would destabilize the macro-economy, Song said.
The government previously rolled out a series of tightening measures, but property prices remain high since 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis as large amounts of speculative capital stayed in the property market.
The National Bureau of Statistics of China last week reported that under its readjusted calculation system, prices of new properties in the country's 70 major cities continued to rise in January.
Ten of the 70 surveyed cities reported increases of more than 10 percent from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Six cities also saw second-hand home prices go up by at least 10 percent.
In Beijing, one square meter in a new apartment sold for an average of 20,000 yuan last year. But the square meter price for apartments within the Fourth Ring Road, the urban area, exceeded 34,000 yuan ($ 5,151), more than 10 times the monthly income of an average Beijing resident.
Beijing's tightening rules now require non-locally registered families to pay income taxes for five consecutive years before purchasing an apartment.
Nie said that the policy would reduce at least 20 percent of the house purchasing demand in Beijing and prompt many qualified home buyers to wait for a turning point on the heated housing market.
He added that property developers and house buyers are waiting for the annual national congress sessions next March to see whether the government will continue to raise lending rates and introduce property taxes in other cities.
Revenue from land sales is a major source of local government income in a number of Chinese cities. But soaring housing prices have become a key source of public complaints in recent years, prompting the government to cut reliance on land sale revenue.
Zhu Zhongyi, vice director of the China Real Estate Association, said that a properly levied property tax could solve the problem in the long run, though the introduction of trial property taxes in Chongqing and Shanghai have had very limited impact.
"It can't bring big changes at present, but it does send the right signal," Zhu said.
Aside from purchase limits and property taxes, the government also vowed to provide 10 million subsidized affordable apartments nationwide to low-income families this year. That figure roughly translates into half of the housing floor space sold on the market in 2010.
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Chinese residents have traditionally favored saving over consumption and investment when it comes to the disposal of income. But a survey conducted by the People's Bank of China, the central bank, late last year found that more respondents have opted for investment than keeping their money in banks.
Home purchases remain the most popular choice of investment, the survey finds.
"Property prices are sure to grow in the long run. A plunge is impossible, even though the tightening policy continues," said Xu Ying, a resident in the southern economic boomtown of Shenzhen, Guangdong province.
Xu recently saw 900,000 yuan in net profit by selling an apartment in the city and she is looking for new apartments. "Buying houses remains a safe and profitable investment," Xu said.
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