Beijing Real Estate Association Admits There’s A ‘Big Bubble’…
by ilene - May 1st, 2010 4:24 pm
Beijing Real Estate Association Admits There’s A ‘Big Bubble’, Supports New Measure To Ban Home Buying
Courtesy of Vincent Fernando at Clusterstock
Beijing on Friday announced a ban on families buying more than one home, in addition to other measures aimed at cooling the city’s hot property market.
As of Friday, "one family can only buy one new apartment in the city for the time being," the municipal government said in a statement. The government also ordered the implementation of central government policies that ban mortgages for purchases of a third or third-plus home.
It also instigated a central government ban on mortgages to non-local residents who cannot provide more than one year of tax returns or proof of social security payments in Beijing. The statement called for "resolutely curbing unreasonable housing demand." It ordered the implementation of measures earlier unveiled by the State Council on second-home purchases.
One of these days, property market tightening measures are going to hit the market hard. It’s fat chance that these regulatory efforts can perfectly balance out the market so that prices simply stop rising and all is calm.
The latest measures, more harsh than those released by the State Council, are aimed clearly at curbing speculation and promoting healthy and stable development of the property sector, Chen Zhi, deputy secretary-general of Beijing Real Estate Association, told Xinhua.
Speculation is the main reason behind high home prices in Beijing, Chen said.
"There exists a rather big bubble in the city’s real estate market. Housing has become more unaffordable for many," he added.
So even the Beijing real estate association is worrying about a bubble. At least give them some credit here. Did America’s National Association of Realtors (NAR) ever caution that the U.S. housing market has a ‘big bubble’? If they did, we don’t recall it.
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See also: Beijing city limits home-buyers to one new apartment: Media
BEIJING: The city of Beijing has issued rules limiting families to one new apartment purchase as authorities try to rein in rampant property speculation and soaring prices, state media reported Friday. More here.>>
New home loans up 1,600pc in Shanghai
by ilene - January 20th, 2010 3:58 am
No bubble here. You may need to register with scmp.com to read the entire articles. – Ilene
(Thank you, Terry)
New home loans up 1,600pc in Shanghai
Mainland banks in Shanghai’s red-hot housing market lent 99.58 billion yuan (HK$113.2 billion) in new mortgages last year, up dramatically from 5.8 billion yuan in 2008, as home seekers rushed to buy and prices hit new highs.
The banks lent 38.93 billion yuan to buyers of new residential properties and 60.65 billion yuan to buyers of second-hand homes, the Shanghai office of the People’s Bank of China said yesterday.
Lending soared more than 1,600 per cent compared with 2008, when the property market and overall economy were hit hard by the global financial crisis, the central bank said.
Beofre you start worrying, know this. (Classic Chinese oxymoronic title.)
No sign of bubble despite soaring home prices in Shanghai
Shanghai’s residential market shows no signs of a bubble despite a hefty price increase because demand remains strong, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.
Price increases "do not mean that the market has reached extreme valuations that typify a bubble", the real estate service firm said in a report yesterday. "Overall, the policy environment will evolve to keep prices from growing too quickly."..
Soaring home prices on the mainland have sparked asset bubble worries among the country’s top leaders, including Premier Wen Jiabao who promised to take action.
According to Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services, average housing prices in the city jumped 65.3 per cent last month from a year earlier, hitting a record 20,187 yuan (HK$22,930) per square metre.
Shanghai Securities News reported earlier this month that the mainland would probably start imposing property tax in selective cities this year, a heavy-handed move to cool the red-hot housing market…
And rest assured, the non-bubble is going to be curbed.
Mainland to curb lending binge, says chief regulator
Mainland will slow its massive lending spree and step up monitoring of banks as it tries to prevent speculative bubbles in real estate and other assets while keeping the country’s economic recovery on track, a top regulator said on Wednesday.
Mainland’s banking system is healthy despite last year’s explosive growth in credit and regulators could manage the risks, said Liu Mingkang, chairman of the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission…
After handing out some