Policy easing gives new momentum to property market

Both new homes and pre-owned homes markets saw increasing market activity during the weekend after all four first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, eased policies on residential property purchases.

According to the new policies, households in those cities with mortgage records but no local home ownership will be treated as first-time homebuyers, eligible for favorable down payments and lower mortgage rates.

For Jiuhai Yuntai, a real estate project of China State Construction, between Sept 1 and 3, the accumulated sales surpassed the 100 million yuan mark to about 152 million yuan, The Paper reported, adding inquiries from prospective homebuyers are rising sharply.

On Saturday, two projects of Poly Developments and Holdings Group, a major real estate developer, also saw sales reach 110 million yuan and 160 million yuan in Shanghai.

In Beijing, well-known developer Sunac China Holding saw the volume of transaction of a real estate project reach 5.62 billion yuan on Sunday, the first opening day.

In the secondhand market, sellers are having a rethink. Some want to remove their homes from the market temporally and take a wait-and-see attitude, while others are choosing to raise prices.

The new policies are expected to drive home sales, an insider told the newspaper, adding starting September, the market will continue the active trading both in the new home and pre-owned home markets.