Broker CLSA tracks the major Chinese developer’s land purchases and the news is less is more:
Since July 2007, CRR has been tracking the land-banking activities in mainland China of 26 leading listed developers (see sidebar).
The land market continued to cool for the fourth consecutive month in April. Eight developers bought new land in 15 cities in April, compared with the same number of active developers purchasing in 13 cities in March. Totalland bank added by the active developers fell 36% MoM in volume and 18% MoM in value (see Figure 2). On a YoY basis, total new land bank of the CRR-tracked developers fell sharply, down 61% in volume terms and 55% in value terms.
Total added land bank year-to-date turned south YoY, down 6% in volume terms and 4% in value terms. Thirty six percent of the added land bank YTD is located in Tier-3 cities, compared with 35% in the whole year 2013. The remaining 64% sits in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.
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.
