CHINA said yesterday that home prices in the country rose 10.5 percent in December compared with the same month a year earlier but the growth rate slowed amid official efforts to cool the boom.
Chinese leaders have imposed curbs to cool the market, worried that runaway spending could ignite a debt crisis and that prices are rising beyond the reach of the country's poor majority, according to the Associated Press.
Despite those measures, prices in December jumped as much as 25 percent in some cities, the country's top planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, said on its Website.
But it said the nationwide growth rate was down 0.6 percentage point from November's growth rate.
Meanwhile, in the first few weeks of 2008 sales of residential property in China's major cities fell drastically, the China Securities Journal has reported.
Cities such as Beijing, Wuhan in Hubei Province and Chongqing saw their housing transactions in the first week of the year drop by more than 20 percent from the previous week, the report said.
Housing transactions in the booming southern city of Shenzhen in Guangdong Province plunged by about 38 percent and sales in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, plummeted by more than 52 percent, it said.
As housing transactions in most cities continued to decline, Wang Shi, chairman of Shenzhen-based Vanke, China's largest real estate developer, recently admitted the "turning point" of China's property market had come, Xinhua news agency reported.
His remarks sparked a furious debate, and some developers blamed him of fanning the wait-and-see attitude among consumers.
Housing prices also fluctuated in various cities with dwindling trading volume. Beijing saw its average housing sales price rise slightly by 1.33 percent in the first week of January, but Shenzhen reported a 3.96-percent slump.
Real estate developers in Beijing were trying to attract more buyers by offering discounts or special "gifts," such as a free parking space or home decorations.
A salesman at Webok International, a new residential development in the bustling Chaoyang District of eastern Beijing, said his company recently cut the sale price of its homes from 24,500 yuan (US$3,297) to 22,000 yuan a square meter.
Other developers also joined in on the price-cutting to promote sales in the city.
Pan Shiyi, head of SOHO China, another major real estate development company, pointed out housing prices would be further curbed in 2008 and 2009 as the government is to offer more economic flats and low-rent housing to middle- and low-income residents.
Shanghai Real Estate market
Shanghai (Chinese: 上海; Pinyin: Shànghǎi; Shanghainese: /zɑ̃'he/; abbreviation: 沪; nickname: 申), situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta in East China, is the largest city of the People's Republic of China and the eighth largest in the world.[4] Widely regarded as the citadel of China's modern economy, the city also serves as one of the nation's most important cultural, commercial, financial, industrial and communications centers. Administratively, Shanghai is a municipality of the People's Republic of China that has province-level status. Shanghai is also one of the world's busiest ports, and became the largest cargo port in the world in 2005.
Originally a fishing town, Shanghai became China's most important city by the twentieth century and was the center of popular culture, intellectual discourse and political intrigue during the Republic of China era. After the communist takeover in 1949, Shanghai languished due to heavy central government taxation and cessation of foreign investment, and had many of its supposedly "bourgeois" elements purged. Following the central government's authorization of market-economic redevelopment of Shanghai in 1992, Shanghai has now surpassed early-starters Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and has since led China's economic growth. Some challenges remain for Shanghai at the beginning of the 21st century, as the city struggles to cope with increased worker migration, a huge wealth gap, and environmental degradation. Despite these challenges, Shanghai's skyscrapers and modern lifestyle are often seen as representing China's recent economic development.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Home prices up 10.5% but growth rate slows
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