Sales at China’s top 100 developers slow down in the first half as property curbs bite
- Contracted sales at these 100 companies rose 4 per cent year on year to 3.9 trillion yuan (US$570 billion) in the first six months
- Sales in the first half of 2018 rose 37.6 per cent from the same period in the previous year
Sales at China’s top 100 developers slowed significantly in the first half, and the outlook for the second half remains weak amid a tightening of home buying restrictions and a funding squeeze on builders in place since May, a report from property consultancy CRIC showed on Monday.
Excluding revenue from jointly developed projects, contracted sales at these 100 companies rose 4 per cent year on year to 3.9 trillion yuan (US$570 billion) in the first six months, a sharp drop from the 37.6 per cent surge in the first-half of 2018.
The combined contracted sales of these 100 companies represent more than half of overall sales on the mainland and is viewed as an important barometer of China’s housing market.
“Looking at the second-half, the property buying curbs remain a big worry for developers,” said Yang Kewei, head of research at CRIC. “The policy for the overall market should be stable: no easing and no tightening.”
Yang added that some of cities that have seen rapid price gains could see additional restrictions.
Hangzhou, in the eastern province of Zhejiang with the largest land sales revenue among all mainland cities, over the weekend became the latest city to tighten its land tender restrictions. One of the new rules stipulate that future home sales prices have to be set when the land is sold. The move made it the only city to lock future selling prices other than Beijing.
