Booming property market a capital 'black hole'

According to Caixin, the frothy real estate market has been siphoning capital and resources from other parts of the real economy, keeping those sectors weak and undermining the central bank’s efforts at economic stimulus through loose monetary policies. In that sense, the property market has become a “black hole” swallowing up all social capital, especially bank loans. Government data show the real estate market has absorbed virtually all recent bank loans. Since March, home mortgages outweighed corporate loans every month, breaking the previous record that previously never saw such a trend last longer than three months. From March to August, new loans to households and individuals totaled 3.48 trillion yuan ($521 million). Of that, about 85% were medium- to long-term loans, mostly for home mortgages.