Chinese stampede property as blocks lifted

Friday, 1 August 2014

Cross-posted from Investing in Chinese Stocks.

Developers and local governments in China are rushing to sell amid a sudden rise in demand as property buying restrictions have been lifted in 30 out of 46 cities.

Some sales are indeed jumping in Hangzhou and Wenzhou at the high end of the market, sparking big upticks in sales figures. No doubt there is some pent up demand, and it’s logical that it would be at the high end due to limited supply. The question is how deep this demand goes and if we will also see buying pick up in the middle and low end of the market. The article notes that “third parties” are not as optimistic as developers and local governments.

Another article shows:

a crowd that showed up to buy housing in Hangzhou once the buying restrictions were lifted. Vanke is selling a new property in Yuhang district of Hangzhou.

It is worth noting that Yuhang has a housing inventory that is well over half of Beijing’s, but its population is less than 2% of Beijing’s. All of Hangzhou has a population roughly one-fifth of Beijing’s.

The third photo shows all the homes sold out.

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.