Some local governments in China are buying homes in bulk from developers or encouraging state-owned entities to do so in their latest efforts to prop up the real-estate market, the Securities Times reported yesterday.
The city government of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province plans to buy about 10,000 new units, the newspaper reported, citing market information.
Jinan city in Shandong Province is proposing to purchase 3,000 units to rent out, the paper reported, citing a government notice.
Photo: EPA-EFE
That document was also reported by other local media, but is no longer available on the government’s Web site.
In addition, cities including Huzhou in Zhejiang Province have asked state-owned companies to buy houses from struggling developers, the Securities Times reported.
Huzhou made the request in August, while the local government in Tonghua city in Jilin Province purchased 32.5 million yuan (US$4.5 million) of property from state-owned developer Poly Property Group Co (保利置業) for shantytown redevelopment, a government notice dated on Wednesday said.
Meanwhile, a prefecture in Xinjiang also encouraged state-owned enterprises to buy homes in bulk and convert them into subsidized housing, a government notice from late last month said.
It is unknown whether the purchases are endorsed by the central government, but governments at all levels are offering more help to try and arrest the slumping real-estate sector after mortgage-rate cuts and a flurry of relaxation measures failed to stimulate demand.
China’s latest property policy package announced before the week-long holiday this month has not ignited a sales turnaround, with residential transactions for the traditionally sales-friendly week plunging 38 percent from a year earlier in 20 major cities, China Index Holdings Ltd (中指控股) data showed.
The recent statements from the People’s Daily newspaper praising the “zero COVID-19” policy and arguing that it must be maintained have also dampened the outlook for the property sector.
In a sign of that weak outlook, domestic sales of excavators dropped almost 25 percent last month from a year earlier, media reports said yesterday, the 18th straight month of declines.
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