Man on bicycle in passes construction site in China.
Chinese policy makers eased property restrictions for the first time since the global financial crisis as a real-estate slump’s threat to economic growth overtakes worries about housing affordability.
People applying for a loan to buy a second home may get lower down payments and mortgage rates that were previously only available to first-time home buyers so long as they have paid off their initial mortgage, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement on its website yesterday. The central bank also eased a ban on mortgages for people buying a third home.
The action marks a reversal in a four-year tightening campaign, as slowing property investment and industrial production raise risks that 2014 economic growth will drift too far below the government’s target of about 7.5 percent. The relaxation follows easing this year targeted at boosting lending for agriculture and small businesses.
“It clearly shows that there’s a bottom line in tolerating an economic slowdown,” said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong. “The move greatly reduced risks of a hard landing.”
Xinyuan Real Estate Co., a Chinese developer listed in New York, rose 1.4 percent, the most in nearly a month, to close at $2.94. Leju Holdings Ltd., a Chinese home-listing website, jumped 6 percent, the most since Sept. 3, to $12.85.
Hong Kong’s markets are shut today and tomorrow, while China’s are closed from today through Oct. 7 for holidays.
China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index for September, due at 9 a.m. local time today, will give more insight on the economic outlook after a private gauge yesterday was unchanged from August.
30 percent
Under existing rules, first-home buyers need to pay a 30 percent down payment, rather than at least 60 percent required for a second home. They can also get as much as a 30 percent discount on mortgage rates from the central bank benchmark.
Banks should decide “prudently” on the down payment and interest rates for loans to applicants buying a third home, the central bank said in the statement.
Over a four-year campaign to curb property speculation that had driven up housing prices, China had raised the minimum down payment for second homes to 60 percent, and suspended third-home mortgages.
Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, known as China’s first-tier cities, increased second-home down-payment requirements further to 70 percent last year after prices jumped.
“The nature of this relaxation is to drill extra demand outside the pool of first home purchasers,” Venant Chiang, Hong Kong-based property analyst at Jefferies Group LLC., wrote in a note today. “We expect most China property stocks will rebound.”
Home sales
Home sales plunged 11 percent in the first eight months from a year earlier, according to government data. Home prices dropped in August from July in 68 of 70 cities tracked by the government, including in Beijing and Shanghai. That was the most since January 2011, when the statistics bureau changed the way it compiles the data.
People applying for a loan to buy a second home may get lower down payments and mortgage rates that were previously only available to first-time home buyers so long as they have paid off their initial mortgage, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement on its website yesterday.
October home-sales volume will probably be “significantly higher” than September’s in major cities, Jinsong Du, a Hong Kong-based property analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, said in a note. “However, I don’t expect a sudden housing-inventory drop, or housing-price increase in the near term.”
All but five of the 46 cities that imposed limits on home ownership since 2010 have removed or eased such restrictions, according to China real-estate agency Centaline Group, as local authorities seek to harness slumping housing and land sales that have dented their revenue.
Chinese residents had been becoming more pessimistic about housing-price gains in the third quarter compared with the previous two quarters, according to a survey of 5,000 households conducted by the Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance, released this week.
Water cup
Policies had been ineffective in boosting housing prices, the center said in a statement, likening them to “a cup of water trying to extinguish a wooden cart on fire.”
The announcement comes two weeks after news that the PBOC injected 500 billion yuan ($81 billion) of three-month funds into the nation’s five largest banks, a government official familiar with the matter said at the time. The latest action suggests that the funds are earmarked for property-related loans, Mizuho’s Shen said.
Nomura Holdings Inc. estimated in a report last week that in a baseline scenario, property investment growth will slow by 8.5 percentage points in 2014 and reduce gross domestic product growth by 1.4 percentage points. Hua Changchun, the China economist for Nomura in Hong Kong, said by phone that yesterday’s policy action is “within expectations” and still falls into the baseline scenario.
Chang Jian, chief China economist at Barclays Plc in Hong Kong, said the policy move may help the broader economy by reducing downside risks, even as property investment will probably stay sluggish.
“It will help to unleash depressed demand from those who want to upgrade their homes,” Chang said. “It will provide some support to the property market. However, it won’t make a fundamental difference in the current property-market adjustment.”
Đăng ký: VietNam News