A suite of historic stimulus measures rolled out earlier this year has not yet managed to shore up the mainland’s beleaguered property market, CNBC reports. JPMorgan chief China economist Haibin Zhu told the news outlet he didn’t expect house prices to stabilise until next year at the earliest.
August did see a tiny month-on-month increase in new housing’s prices, just 0.11 percent across 100 cities. However, resale prices in the same areas dipped by 0.71 percent when compared with July. Year-on-year, new and resale prices dropped by 1.76 and 6.89 percent respectively.
In May, China’s central bank announced it would lower interest rates, reduce down payment requirements and facilitate a trillion yuan (US$138 billion) in extra funding for home buyers in a bid to resuscitate the market – which has been in crisis-mode since 2021, when a number of behemoth property developers defaulted on repayments to investors.
[See more: China is taking ‘historic’ measures to shore up its property sector]
On Saturday, Bloomberg reported that the authorities were considering new measures: namely, the refinancing of as much as US$5.4 trillion of mortgages and allowing homeowners to switch banks. Boosting China’s weak consumption rates would likely be the idea here.
Zhu was sceptical that the move would increase demand for home purchases, however.
“Even if the mortgage refinancing policy materialises, it’s not a policy to revive the housing market,” he said. “[This policy] has nothing to do with the new home demand, mainly benefiting the existing homeowners.”
