Call to further stimulate China's real estate

As China's real estate market keeps warming up, a think tank has drafted and submitted suggestions to authorities on measures regarding tax and purchase controls in a bit to further stimulate the market demand and recovery, China Securities Journal reported on Monday.

According to the report, it advised to shorten the second-hand housing transactions tax exemptions from five years to two years. Industry insiders also told the reporter that it suggested micro adjust towards the purchase restrictions in first-tier cities.

The report said that the policies will not be implemented any time soon until the annual statistics on the property market come out.

According to statistics conducted by Centaline Group, 270,000 residences were sold in 54 cities in November, a month-on-month growth of 8.9 percent. Demand drove up the sales in first-tier cities as 12,279 new properties were sold and 11,180 second-hand properties were sold in Beijing last month, creating highest monthly records this year.

A series of favorable properties policies introduced in the second half of 2014, such as the further relaxation of purchase controls and lower lending rates, are considered the main reasons behind the recovery.

Property buyers choose to invest in the market as the favorable policies raised the market potential and lowered the cost, according to Zhang Dawei, analyst with Centaline Group. As a collective effect, the property market volume is expected to keep the momentum going, said Zhang.

Some industry insiders are concerned that if favorable policies are carried out as soon as the market starts showing signs of slowing down, it would lead to the industry relying too much on land finance.