[photopress:real_estate_shanghai_1.jpg,full,alignright]This is getting boring. Every quarter, every month you can now report that prices are increasing. According to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the National Development and Reform Commission housing prices in 70 major Chinese cities were up a record 7.5% in July from the same month last year.
The rise is a new high and is 0.4 percentage points higher than the figure of June.
Beihai, Shenzhen and Nanning saw the highest price rises at 18.6%, 16.1% and 12% respectively.
Another report by the National Bureau of Statistics showed the real estate performance indices had risen for four consecutive months to 104.00 points in July from 101.22 points in March.
Does this indicate possible overheating? Yes.
Zhu Zhongyi, vice president of the China Real Estate Association, said, ‘The disparity between tight supply and overheating demand pushed the prices up.’
The National Bureau of Statistics said price rises and booming demand led, in its turn, to increasing property investment which saw a 28.9% rise in the first seven months of 2007.
The report said the total area of ‘developed’ land in China rose 11.3% to 142 million square meters in the first seven months. The growth was 3.7 percentage points higher than the first half of this year.
Driven by property development investment, domestic bank loans rose by 21.4%, company-raised funds by 32.2% and foreign funds 74.5%.
Further, China’s property prosperity index stood at 104 at the end of July, up 0.49 point from a year earlier and 0.37 point from June. The index takes into account property prices, sales volume and consumer confidence. A higher value indicates a more active real estate sector. And as it keeps going higher you can take it that consumer confidence is pretty bouyant.
In terms of land area developed, the sub-index declined 3.06 points from a year earlier to 97.93. In the first seven months, a total of 142 million square meters of land was developed.
At the end of July China had 121 million square meters of unsold floor space, up 0.5% year-on-year.
Source: China View and Forbes
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