There's spring in real estate recovery
"Zhengzhou's new home and pre-owned housing price index dropped 17 months in a row, and it's necessary to boost the weak market confidence. A stable property market matters to the whole province's real estate market and fixed-asset investment, said Li Yujia, chief researcher at the Guangdong Planning Institute's residential policy research center.
"There will be more cities with home loan adjustment requirements that will likely follow suit in the first quarter, and their lower limit for mortgage rates could be below 4 percent," said Chen.
She also noted that most of such cities would be second-, third- and fourth-tier cities, while first-tier and hot spot second-tier cities whose home markets have strong resilience will see the market stabilize.
Mortgage rate cuts would alleviate the homebuyers' repayment pressure, lower purchase cost, and encourage potential homebuyers to make those big decisions — whether or not to buy a home now.
"The lowered home loan interest rates are a positive move that can boost home sales, and we expect key second-tier cities to see sales rebound in the spring, reaching levels similar to those seen in 2021," Chen said.
The annual Spring Festival holiday, which fell in the Jan 21-27 period this year, is usually marked by mass migrations for customary Chinese family reunions, rendering housing sales inactive. But, this year's holiday saw a mild recovery in the number of visits made by potential homebuyers to apartments in many first- and second-tier cities, according to the China Index Academy.
The market sentiment index in 50 key cities saw its greatest rise in January since 2022, showing homebuyers' confidence is returning, said Wang Xiaoqiang, chief analyst with the Zhuge Real Estate Data Research Center.
"The economic measures announced by the provinces of Yunnan, Jiangsu, Liaoning and Guangdong support home sales, stressing the importance of property market in regional economic development," Wang said.
Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, took the lead by easing its home purchase restrictions, which allowed existing homeowners to buy one more apartment. Industry experts believe countrywide market demand will likely get a boost as many more second-tier cities are about to make similar adjustments to their existing restrictions on home purchases.
Wang said she expects the market sentiment will further rebound in the following months, and lead to a spike in market transactions. "The spring of the real estate market is around the corner."
Hundreds of measures related to the property market have been introduced by both the central and local governments to safeguard the stable operation of the property market, said Chen Sheng, president of the China Real Estate Data Academy.
"But it may take some time for the normalization of the property sector, as the policy has to take full effect, homebuyers' confidence has to return, and property developers' investments have to rebound ... all these need to recover step by step," Chen Sheng said. There will be additional policy fine-tuning and optimization throughout the market recovery, he said.
With the gradual recovery in both supply and demand, home prices in first-tier cities will likely stabilize in the first half, followed by stability in second-tier cities in the second half, Li said.
All said and done, the property industry remains a "pillar" of the economy. Hence, the policy stance has shifted to supporting the industry, said Pang.
For the longer term, the government will further promote the stable growth and sustainable development of the industry, abiding by the principle of "houses are for living in, not for speculation", Pang said.
