This was how Shanghai home buyers reacted to last week’s tightening talks
This was how Shanghai home buyers reacted to last week’s tightening talks
Word about possible cooling measures agitates buyers in a hot housing market
Speculation over government plans to impose tightening measures on Shanghai’s overheating housing market sent home hunters on a panic buying spree last week, the South China Morning Post reports.
In a span of seven days, edgy home buyers catapulted the amount of space sold in the city to 555,700 square meters, representing a 93 percent sales growth and breaking a five-month record, data from the Shanghai Homelink Real Estate Agency shows. A government website was “crippled” in the process.
The cooling measures in question allegedly call for a hike in minimum downpayment requirements for first-time home buyers, who otherwise have mortgage records, from 30 percent to 50 percent. For households looking into a mortgage for a second property, the required downpayment would supposedly climb from 50 percent to 70 percent by early September. Changes in downpayment requirements are also said to be afoot for home buyers on their third mortgage applications.
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On Monday, the Shanghai government officially dismissed hearsay about credit tightening but the tension has already done damage. “Many of them are desperate for owning their own apartment despite the lofty home prices have already cost them years of savings for down payment and incurred several million yuan of debts in future,” a broker with Century 21 China Real Estate told the Post. “They have reasons to make a rush to seal the transaction so as to dodge potentially tightened home buying policies.”
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, average new home prices in Shanghai rose 27 percent in July from a year earlier. Land values are also climbing, with a lot near Jing’an district recently selling for a record CNY100,315 (USD15,000) per square metre.
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Source: Property Report