Measures must be tailored to local areas: experts
China will fully implement the property registration system during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) said Thursday in a statement posted on its website.
Experts said it will show the real situation in the country's real estate market and help to improve regulation of the sector in the future.
The country will improve the rules and laws related to the immovable property registration system, unify the registration scope and regulate the registration in the next five years, the MLR statement said.
With the aim of advancing the stable growth of the domestic property market, the government will continue to promote the reduction of inventories of unsold housing, and plans to reduce or even halt the supply of land for new housing in cities that have large amounts of unsold property, the MLR said.
But in cities where supply is short and demand is still strong, supply of land for housing will be moderately increased, according to the statement.
The property registration system will offer a reference for the government and help it to create housing policies based on the actual situation, said Yan Yuejin, a research director at the Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute.
"The system might curb the sharp rising momentum of home prices in the long run, but it will not have a big impact on the domestic property market in the short term," Yan told the Global Times on Thursday.
Rapid growth in sales
With tightening policies for the property market in first-tier cities having been rolled out in March, Chinese investors have turned to some second-tier cities that have sound investment prospects such as Nanjing and Suzhou in East China's Jiangsu Province, Hui Jianqiang, research director with real estate information provider Beijing Zhongfangyanxie Technology Service, told the Global Times Thursday.
Second-tier cities across the country have seen strong land sales in recent months.
Suzhou raised 25 billion yuan ($3.86 billion) from land sales in five days starting from April 7, with the city's revenue from land sales having reached 50 billion yuan in the whole of 2015, domestic news portal jiemian.com reported Wednesday.
"Housing prices in Suzhou are crazy! When I bought an apartment in Xiangcheng district in November 2014, the price was 10,300 yuan per square meter, and it has reached over 22,000 yuan per square meter now," a 27-year-old white-collar worker surnamed Yu told the Global Times on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Zhuhai in South China's Guangdong Province announced on Wednesday that it had officially ended restrictions on housing purchases in the city and that those who are not local residents can buy homes of all types in the city, according to media reports.
The transaction volume for newly built residential housing in second-tier cities reached 18.25 million square meters in March, up 160.6 percent month-on-month, said a report released Friday by E-house China R&D Institute.
"If housing prices in second-tier cities keep rising, it is possible that home restrictions will be imposed in these cities," Hui noted.
Nanjing is set to raise down payments for people buying a second home, according to media reports.
Local strategies needed
The central government and local authorities are stepping up efforts to tighten the domestic housing market, and because some housing policies have not been carried out effectively, some new regulatory strategies have emerged, experts noted.
"For example, housing policies based on different local situations, such as city downtowns and suburbs, are encouraged, aiming to create more specific regulations for local home markets," said Yan, the research director.
"Further assessment of the housing policies should be conducted," Yan noted.
For third- and fourth-tier cities, it will take more than 30 months for them to reduce their housing inventories substantially, the Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald newspaper said Thursday.
Cutting housing inventories is like a "long-lasting war," in which success cannot be achieved easily and that requires strategies in line with the local situation, Hui said.
