Over 50 cities ease home purchase curbs
▶ Real estate industry expected to rebound after correction: expert
More than 50 Chinese cities have adjusted their home purchase policies by adopting measures such as easing purchase restrictions and encouraging trade-ins of urban residential housing to promote home sales and the healthy development of the real estate market.
Only six provinces and municipalities in the country, including Hainan and Tianjin, have not completely lifted previously imposed restrictions.
Analysts said that the house purchase restriction policy is gradually passing into history. Purchase limits were introduced in the past when housing prices rose too fast. Now that the market is no longer full of speculative demand, the eased purchase restrictions are in line with the law and expectations.
Among the latest moves, Hangzhou, the capital of East China’s Zhejiang Province and Xi’an, the capital of Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, announced on Thursday the full removal of all previous restrictions on home purchases.
Potential buyers in Hangzhou and Xi’an no longer need to meet conditions such as having a local hukou (residence permit) or local social security account, and there is no longer a limit to the number of apartments each person is allowed to buy, local housing administrations announced.
Many real estate brokerages in Hangzhou said that their phones “blew up” with questions about home purchases, after the restriction was lifted.
“Hangzhou’s policy will contribute to the overall relaxation of policies in other cities across the country. It is a landmark event for local housing policies, after major changes in the supply and demand relationship of the real estate market,” Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute, told the Global Times on Sunday.
On Friday, many shares of developers rose by the 10 percent daily ceiling, something that hadn’t happened for a long time, showing the continued recovery of market confidence.
In late April, Chengdu, the capital of Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, said that it would abolish restrictions on home purchases starting from April 29, including the housing lottery system.
Other provincial capitals, such as Changsha, Central China’s Hunan Province and Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province, and first-tier cities such as Shenzhen, in South China’s Guangdong Province, also moved to ease their policies to support purchases and trade-ins of houses.
Beijing, for example, adjusted its home purchase restriction policy on April 30, the first adjustment in 13 years, which greatly stimulated the city’s property market during the May Day holidays.
It is expected that the national property market will gradually pick up momentum in the coming weeks, which will accelerate the recovery of the real estate sector, Yan said.
The most recent meeting of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Political Bureau called for new measures to support the property sector.