Sharp rise in land sale income

Income from land sales in first-tier cities saw a dramatic year-on-year rise in the first 11 months this year, which could lead to an increase in home prices next year, analysts said Thursday.

The income from land sales in six first-tier cities - Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Chongqing - reached a total of 589.72 billion yuan ($96.77) in the first 11 months this year, up 177.32 percent year-on-year, according to data calculated by Shanghai-based China Real Estate Information Co (CRIC) and e-mailed to the Global Times Thursday.

According to another report released Thursday by Centaline China Real Estate, land sales income in 40 major cities hit 1.4 trillion yuan in the first 11 months this year, a rise of 68 percent compared with the same period last year.

The jump in land sales income is due to rises in both sale areas and prices, which "might possibly cause further growth in home prices next year," Li Ying, an analyst at CRIC, told the Global Times Thursday.

Despite the government's efforts over the last four years to cool the overheated property market, home prices in 70 major Chinese cities continued to hit record highs in October, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Only one of the 70 cities - Wenzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province - saw a slight year-on-year decline of 1.5 percent in the price of newly built apartments, excluding affordable housing.

The other 69 cities saw rises, with prices in Shanghai increasing by the most at 21.4 percent, the NBS data said.

In response, local authorities in major cities like Beijing have announced new policies since October to cool the property market.

Beijing will start construction of 20,000 units of low-cost homes before the end of this year.

This new type of affordable housing comes with conditions: The homes cannot be resold in the first five years after being purchased; and if the homes are resold after five years, 30 percent of the profit will go to the government.

The local authorities in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province also announced last month that down payments would be raised for people buying a second home.

However, property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, president of Beijing-based Huayuan Group, was quoted by the Beijing News Thursday as saying that home prices in major cities will rise if governments continue to offer low-cost homes.

Ren said there should be less government administrative controls on the property market, which should be allowed to operate in a fully market-oriented way.

But Liu Yuan, a senior research manager at Centaline China Real Estate, told the Global Times Thursday that "due to the rising population and limited land supplies" home prices in first-tier cities will keep rising unless there are new policies, such as imposing a property tax.

Since the sales prices for land per square meter in first-tier cities this year are almost equivalent to the nearby home sales prices per square meter, "there is no doubt that prices of newly built homes will rise in the following year," Liu noted.

No direct administrative measures for the property sector were announced after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee last month, with the focus on long-term strategies instead.