China Property Sales Rise 75.5% to 4.4 Trillion Yuan
China property sales jumped 75.5 percent to 4.4 trillion yuan ($644 billion) last year, led by the eastern cities of Zhejiang and Shanghai, as record new loans boosted buying.
The sales data follows last week’s announcement that December property prices rose 7.8 percent, the fastest pace in 18 months, adding urgency to government efforts to rein in speculation. China this month reimposed a sales tax on homes sold within five years of their purchase while the country’s cabinet on Jan. 10 urged strict application of a 40 percent down-payment requirement for second homes. The measures are likely to weigh on first-quarter sales, economist Lu Ting said.
‘We will see very bad transaction numbers, even though prices may not fall that much as the supply of new homes is still low,” Lu, a Hong Kong-based economist at Bank of America- Merrill Lynch, said by phone today. Today’s data more accurately reflect last year’s gain in asset values, he said
By floor area, sales rose 42 percent from 2008 to 937 million square meters (10 billion square feet), the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement on its Web site today. That compares with a 53 percent gain between January and November, when sales value advanced 86.8 percent. December’s declining sales growth reflects the seasonally slow winter period, Lu said.
The December figure for property prices probably understated the size of the increase, the economist said. “In reality, the inflation in asset prices may be between 20 percent and 30 percent, and that is way too high for the policy- makers,” Lu said.
Shanghai Gain
Zhejiang topped the increase in sales value, with a 130 percent gain, the statistics bureau said today. In Shanghai, the gain was 126 percent.
Investment in property development in 2009 rose 16.1 percent to 3.62 trillion yuan, the statistics bureau said. That was less than the 17.8 percent gain in the first 11 months. Chinese banks extended a record 9.59 trillion yuan of new loans last year.
To counter property speculation, China is tightening lending. Chinese banks from Jan. 18 raised the share of deposits they must set aside as reserves, as the government seeks to rein in liquidity from record lending without stalling a recovery. China is targeting 8 percent growth this year, Industry Minister Li Yizhong said Dec. 21.
Developers Sales Surge
Shanghai Shimao Co., the local unit of billionaire Xu Rongmao’s developer Shimao Holdings Holdings Ltd., said today that 2009 profit may quadruple, partly due to higher sales from additional commercial property projects.
Earlier this month, some of China’s biggest developers said 2009 sales increased significantly.
China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd., owned by the country’s construction ministry, said property sales rose 80 percent to HK$47.8 billion. Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd., China’s third-biggest developer by market value, said Jan. 5 that contracted sales jumped fivefold to 30.3 billion yuan.