No danger of collapse in Chinese real estate market

The Chinese real estate market is in a period of adjustment, but unlike the US and Japan, it is not in danger of collapse, Qin Hong, director of the policy research center at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development told a forum.

Qin's conclusion is based on three sets of statistics she revealed at the first China Building Economy Forum on Friday, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Monday.

China has strict home loan policies and requires high down payments for homes purchased with loans; home buyers have to put down at least 30 percent deposit and for second homes 60 percent; the period for mortgage loans is less than 10 years on average.

Other than down payments, China avoids difficulties from the perspective of ratio of housing loan balance to GDP, according to Qin.

In 2012, the rate was lower than 20 percent, far below that in the US (over 50 percent), UK (close to 50 percent), France (over 40 percent), and Japan (above 20 percent but below 30 percent).

China's urbanization rate stands at 53 percent at present, leaving the county plenty of space to reach 70 percent, Qin said.

That means that the number of new urbanites would come to 20 million each year, which will protect China from the risk of a property bubble crash such as those in Japan in 1975 and 1989, when Japan's urbanization rate was already 76 percent at the beginning of the 1970s, according to Qin

Qin admitted there are risks in China's housing market. Small- and medium-sized property developers are faced with financial pressures and the adjustment of the property market will hit the land market, which in turn will impact on local financing platforms. Commercial properties are also affected by their developers' performance.

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