Hot markets
The housing market of Nantong, East China's Jiangsu Province, a city about 250 kilometers northeast of Hangzhou, has remained hot even though local authorities increased the minimum down payment requirement from 30 percent to 40 percent in March.
Home prices in Nantong increased by 10 percent from January to March, a local resident -surnamed Su told the Global Times on Tuesday, noting that crowds have been flocking to the Nantong Property Trade Center in recent weeks.
Many of the buyers come from other parts of China, especially Shanghai and Beijing, seeking to capitalize on Nantong's close proximity to Shanghai, Su said. Nantong is about 130 kilometers away from Shanghai.
Local residents have not been much affected by the outsider-driven surge in home prices because most locals already own a home.
The housing market in Southwest China's Chongqing has also been a favorite for investors from other parts of the country.
In late October 2016, the average home price in Chongqing's northern Yubei district was about 8,000 yuan per square meter, said Laura Cai, a 30-something white-collar worker in Chongqing. The price has since grown to 12,000 yuan per square meter.
"The average home price in Chongqing is lower than in provinces in other parts of China, so there is still a lot of room for growth," Cai told the Global Time on Tuesday.
Local home prices were expected to rise due to the establishment of a free trade area in Chongqing on March 15, Yan said.
He noted that prospective buyers, especially from other parts of China, are likely to turn to Chongqing because its home-buying restrictions are looser than elsewhere in the country.
In January, Chongqing announced that buyers without a local business, a local job or local residency must pay a 0.5 percent property tax on homes they buy in the city.
A nationwide property tax has not been implemented, though -Chongqing and Shanghai have been piloting their own local property taxes since 2011.
Impact to be observed
The growth of new home prices in second-tier cities decelerated in February, declining by 0.4 percentage point compared with January, according to data the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on March 18.
The average home price in some provincial capitals in China's western and central provinces, such as Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, and Changsha, capital of Central China's Hunan Province, ranged between 8,000 yuan and 10,000 yuan per square meter in February, according to a report by the E-house China R&D Institute.
The average housing price in Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, was about 7,971 yuan per square meter in February, the report said. In Xining, capital of Northwest China's Qinghai Province, the average price stood at 6,092 yuan per square meter in the same month.
Yan predicted a slight increase in second-tier city home prices in the second half of this year, especially in capitals such as Hangzhou, Nanjing and Chengdu.
"Home prices are closely related to potential demand, which remains strong at the moment," Liu said, noting that it will take some time to observe what impact the latest round of home-buying restrictions will have on demand.
Local efforts will play a leading role in preventing surging home price, Liu said.
