Secondhand home market ‘stable’

Smaller cities see boom as sales drop in big ones

The focus of the secondhand housing market is shifting from first-tier cities to smaller ones as a result of government controls, but experts noted that the entire secondhand property market is still stable and serves as a strong pillar of the economy.

Data from the real estate agency Lianjia showed that the trading volume of secondhand homes slumped by 52.21 percent year-on-year in the first six months this year in Shanghai.

The data also showed that buyers tended to have a preference for secondhand homes in remote suburban areas in Shanghai such as Jinshan and Fengxian districts, while the market cooled down in downtown areas or suburbs relatively close to the city center.

But Xue Jianxiong, president of asset management firm UTC, said after growing in the first quarter, the secondhand housing market in Fengxian is showing signs of slowdown, as the price gap between firsthand and secondhand homes has narrowed in recent months.

“In July, the secondhand housing market in Shanghai has entered a period of stagnation barring some exceptions like Lin’gang, which recently became a base for the domestic large aircraft industry,” he told the Global Times on Friday.

A Shanghai resident surnamed Dai, who is selling a secondhand home in the city center area of Jing’an district, said that his home has been available for sale for several months but is yet to be sold.

“I have lowered the home price twice on the suggestion of the real estate broker, and yet there are hardly any enquiries,” he told the Global Times on Friday.

Meanwhile, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that the prices of secondhand homes in Beijing slumped 0.4 percent in June compared with the previous month.

Data showed that 8,918 secondhand homes were traded in Beijing in June, the first time in 27 months when less than 10,000 secondhand homes were traded in a month in the capital city, a report from the Beijing Youth Daily revealed on Wednesday.

In Shenzhen of North China’s Guangdong Province, the prices of secondhand homes slumped by 0.3 percent while the drop was 0.9 percent in North China’s Tianjin, the NBS data showed.

The downturn is a direct result of the government’s tightening measures in a number of cities, mostly big ones, since late 2016, Xue noted.

But in comparison, the secondhand housing market in smaller cities in China has witnessed an upturn recently. For example, the prices of secondhand homes surged by 1.2 percent month-on-month in June in Ningbo in East China’s Zhejiang Province.

However, according to Xue, the housing market in general is still stable with just a shift in the center of gravity.

“I don’t think the government will let the housing market, which accounts for a big percentage of the domestic economy, slip on a large scale,” he said.