Municipal governments around China launched a total of 33 property market control policies in the month of April alone, after Beijing first unveiled policies to contain overheating urban real estate prices more than a year ago.
Data from Centaline Property indicates that the 33 policies were introduced by 25 municipal governments, with the local governments of Beijing, Hainan and Hangzhou all unveiling multiple control measures.
The number of real estates control policies launched by China’s municipal governments in the first quarter was 76 in total, while other data points to the launch of more than 115 since the start of the year.
According to Centaline chief analyst Zhang Dawei (张大伟) 2018 has already seen a marked change in the geographic location of municipal governments launching property controls.
While in 2017 real estate control policies were mainly concentrated in China’s first and second-tier cities, in 2017 they have since gradually shifted towards third and fourth-tier urban centres.
At present more than 60 cities around China implement real estate sales restrictions, while an increasing number of cities are implementing a lottery system for home purchases, including Changsha, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai and Xi’an.
According to Zhang the chief reason for the implementation of the lottery system is a tight supply-demand balance in these cities, especially in those that impose price controls.
Zhang expects nation-wide real-estate control policies to continue in those cities where housing prices are still rising, and will include purchase restriction and sales restriction policies, with 5 year sales restrictions becoming especially prominent.
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