Five of China’s major cities have imposed restrictions on the purchase of housing by companies, amidst the broader implementation of real estate market controls by the country’s municipal governments since early 2017.
On 31 July Shenzhen issued the “Notice Concerning Further Strengthening of Real Estate Controls and Expediting the Stable and Healthy Growth of the Real Estate Market (关于进一步加强房地产调控 促进房地产市场平稳健康发展的通知), making it the fifth Chinese city to apply restrictions on the purchase of housing by private or public-sector organisations after Changsha, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Xi’an.
At the start of July Shanghai launched a new property control policy, which had the goal of combating the use of shell companies for speculation in the local real estate market.
Analysts expect the Chinese capital of Beijing to soon follow suit, as the central government maintains the intensity of nationwide real estate property controls, and the official policy stance that “houses are for occupation, not speculation.”
Zhang Dawei (张大伟), chief analyst with Centaline Property, said to Securities Daily that most purchases of residential property by enterprises were for short-term speculative purposes, with the exception of a small number of apartment investment enterprises.
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