(Yicai) Sept. 7 — The number of house views and pre-owned apartments up for sale in China have jumped noticeably in the past week after the country’s biggest first-tier cities relaxed their mortgage policies at the end of last month to make it easier for people to get onto the property ladder.
People looking to buy property in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou will be treated as first-time home buyers if they do not currently own property, even if they previously owned housing, the four cities said between Aug. 30 and Sept. 1. In China, first-time buyers enjoy lower interest rates and down payments ratios.
As a result, more first-time buyers are entering the market. Over 1,800 new apartments changed hands in Beijing in the first weekend since the new measures were released, amounting to more than half of last month’s sales, according to Yicai research. Even hard-to-sell projects in outlying areas logged a peak in sales.
In Shanghai, around 30 percent more people viewed apartments last weekend than a week ago and there was a jump in the number of properties sold, Yang Yulei, chief analyst at Shanghai Lianjia Research Institute, told Yicai. Most of the new customers are people who have been waiting for curbs to ease in order to purchase.
In the southern city of Guangzhou, there were no notable changes in the property market and the results of the new measures still need to be seen, a person at a real estate agency said.
There was a typhoon last weekend so not many people came to our office asking to view apartments, a sales agent for a new development said.
More Listings
The number of pre-owned homes on the market has surged since the new rules were rolled out. In Beijing, an additional 3,000 were listed on Sept. 2, but the prices remain stable. There are now more than 150,000 second-hand homes up for sale in the capital city, an employee at leading real estate agency Lianjia said.
More second-hand homes will be put on the market as owners, especially those in the first-tier cities, plan to upgrade, as it becomes easier for first-time buyers to purchase homes, a report from realtor Zhuge’s research center showed. This is expected to drive the sale of pre-owned apartments.
“Unlike apartment owners in other cities, those in Beijing believe that prices will rebound and are not willing to offer discounts,” the person said. “One owner refused to reduce his price by even a penny even though I argued with him for eight hours straight,” he added.
Shanghai too has seen a big jump in second-hand homes on sale, with sales volume swelling 70 percent last weekend from the week before, according to data from Lianjia’s Shanghai branch. And, the number of newly added apartments soared 65 percent last weekend from a week earlier.
There were 53,000 pre-owned homes up for sale in Shenzhen as of Sept. 4, a jump of 1 percent week on week, according to data from a real estate association in the southern Chinese city.
Source : YiCaiGlobal