A saleswoman (center) talks with customers at a real estate sales office in Huai'an, Jiangsu province. (Photo by Zhou Changguo/China News Service)
China's housing market is still profitable and will suffer no dramatic ups or downs, as a long-term effective mechanism to keep the market stable is on the way.
According to a report from Centaline Property Agency, among 82 listed real estate firms that announced their annual forecasting reports, 73 percent had good performances last year, and 29 of them were expected to announce their profits will surge 100 percent year-on-year.
Last year, the sales area of commercial buildings in China topped 1.6 billion square meters for the first time, an increase of 7.7 percent over the previous year, and the sales of commercial buildings also topped 13 trillion yuan, increased 13.7 percent year-on-year.
At a real estate summit meeting held by China Times and Sina in Beijing, some industry insiders expressed positive feelings toward the market.
After the housing market experienced a fast growing period, with high prices and high sales volume, it has entered into a sideways consolidation period now, said Shui Pi, a well-known financial commentator and editor-in-chief of China Times.
New macro control measures will be published, he said, as liquidity tightens, financial policies for the housing market will be decided in the next three years, and financial support to the market will be enter a bottleneck period.
Chinese people have limited investment avenues and mainly focus on homes and stocks, said Yang Delong, chief economist at investment firm First Qiankai Fund. In the past ten years, Chinese families spent nearly 70 percent of their savings on buying houses.
As the housing market will be divided into core area and non-core areas, homebuyers without rigid demand should choose houses at the core area, Yang said.
Yang also said controlling the housing market aims to redirect investment funds into the real economy, and avoid huge money flows into real estate speculation.
Ouyang Jie, senior vice-president at real estate developer Future Land, said the Chinese housing market will have no ups and downs.
In the future, monopolies in the real estate market will speed up, as the land supply tends to be limited in cities, and urbanization will come to an end, Jie said.
He pointed out houses will be a luxury in developed cities, commercial properties will be more valuable investments in core areas and shares of real estate firms with high growth opportunities will have good investment expectation on stock markets.
Because houses have dual value - a place to live and an investment - the market will keep a moderate rise in the medium run, said Shen Linan, vice-president of Tahoe Group.
