China’s residential property market rose for the 33rd straight month in November, prompting the government to continue its drumbeat of market-cooling measures to stave off the kind of risk that led to the 2008 subprime lending crisis in the United States, reported the South China Morning Post.
November’s average home price across 70 cities rose 4% from a year ago, even if the growth pace was the slowest in six months, according to data by the National Bureau of Statistics. The average price rose 4.3% in October from a year ago, said the SCMP.
Still, there were “growing signs of a buying spree in either new homes or pre-owned [property] in major cities like Shanghai,” said Song Yulin, a senior manager with the city’s property agency Baonuo. “Local authorities are set to step in to stabilise the market if a wild price gain in home prices occurs.”
The stubborn refusal of home prices to yield to the government’s controls underscores why the Chinese bank regulator Guo Shuqing singled out real estate as
the “grey rhino” of the nation’s banking industry, a metaphor that refers to a predictable catastrophic event, usually in financial services.