China May Home Sales Rose 32.9% Amid Policy Tightening Measures
slow down???? are they frickin kidding me????
June 12, 2016 — 7:27 PM PDT
China’s new home sales rose 32.9 percent in May from a year earlier, amid policy tightening in some of the nation’s largest cities.
New home sales rose to 773 billion yuan ($117 billion) last month from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data the National Bureau of Statistics released Monday. The increase compares with a 63.5 percent surge the previous month. Home sales fell 2.6 percent in May from April.
The government is seeking to clear a glut of unsold homes in smaller cities while encouraging curbs in top economic hubs, where prices have soared amid stimulus measures and lowered interest rates. Among the cities to impose curbs were Shanghai and Shenzhen, where new-home prices in April soared 28 percent and 62 percent respectively from a year earlier. Suzhou, Nanjing and Langfang have also introduced tightening measures.
Even if local curbs will lead to a “sharp fall” in sales, volumes will rebound, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Hong Kong-based property analyst Ryan Li wrote in an e-mailed response on Wednesday. Li forecasts the value of the nation’s home sales to jump 16 percent this year. ‘‘Apart from Shanghai, all other cities are not seeing tight policy that can curb demand,” Li wrote.
Property development investment growth, which expanded at the slowest pace in 15 years in December, was 7 percent in the first five months of the year. That’s slower than the 7.2 percent increase in the first four months.
Developers bought 5.9 percent less land in the period, while new construction starts increased 18.3 percent.
