China's property market rebounds over holiday

BEIJING -- China's property market picked up over the week-long national holiday, with most first-tier cities seeing obvious rises both in new home transaction volume and home prices, according to report in China Securities Journal on Tuesday.

From Oct 1-6, a total of 783 new home transactions were registered in Beijing, around double the same period last year, while second-hand home transactions declined, the report said, citing data from the Beijing municipal commission of housing and urban-rural development.

In Guangzhou, the coastal capital of south China's Guangdong province, new home sales also increased during the holiday, with 183 house transactions on Oct 1 alone, according to house.163.com, a Chinese property market observing site.

Despite the price-control measures of the central government, Chinese home buyers in first-tier municipalities are still eager to enter the market, the report quoted Xie Yifeng, an expert on the Chinese property market, as saying.

Except for a few cities where property supply is sufficient, many second-tier cities, including Nanjing and Hangzhou, also witnessed a warmed-up property market during the holiday, according to the report.

China Index Academy, a leading property research institution, said on Monday that the average new home price in a pool of 100 cities stood at 10,554 yuan ($1,724) per square meter in September, marking a 1.07-percent rise from August and an increase for a 16th consecutive month.

It is easy for house prices in first- and second-tier cities to rise but hard for them to fall as more resources gather in those places, said Zhang Dawei, director of Centaline Property's research center.

A sufficient credit supply since last year may also contribute to rising home prices, added Zhang.

Xie predicted that the market would release more buying power in October amid the waning effects of the first-round of property curbing measures rolled out at the beginning of this year.

But worries are looming about the total transaction volume in November and December, which may be affected if house prices continue to rise. In some places, price-to-rent ratios have exceeded the international warning line, China Securities Journal quoted anonymous insiders as saying.

Rising prices despite regulatory measures will undermine market confidence over property market regulation, as well as over future development toward a healthy property market in China, Zhang said.

"It's time to introduce a long-term mechanism to balance the property market," he added.