[photopress:16CHINA_HOUSING_R_0.jpg,full,alignright]The National Development and Reform Commission said in a report that housing demand in China was ‘still robust’ in the first four months of the year. The number of vacant properties dropped 0.8% in the period.
Vacant properties are defined as houses which haven’t been sold or rented for a year which is a pretty strong definition of the word ‘vacant’. Perhaps one should refer to them as ‘persistently vacant’.
A big gap exists between supply and demand of new residences with the imbalance being on the demand site which is still robust.
Investments in homes smaller than 90 square meters accounted for only 17.2% of residence investments even though the government rule is that 70% of the properties should be this size.
The report said it is tough to implement the ‘70%, 90 square meters’ policy and the figures bear this out.
In the four months under review, prices of new residences in the country’s 70 major cities grew around 6% from a year earlier.
Property investment in the period grew 27.4% from a year earlier to RMB526.5 billion ($68.6 billion), and foreign direct investments galloped up 136.5%.
China last year tightened credit to developers, boosted supervision over land use and improved the enforcement of tax policies to cool down a real estate boom. As yet, there seems to be no major effect.
Source: Shanghai Daily
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