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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (4939)	5/25/2005 12:51:12 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

Shanghai takes steps to cool real estate By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer MAY. 24 11:54 P.M. ET Measures aimed at cooling Shanghai's sizzling real estate market by discouraging property speculation have slowed home sales and investment, with average daily new home sales in the city falling by about 60 percent since March, state media reported Wednesday. Sales of new homes -- mainly apartments -- fell to a low of 232 units a day last week from 604 a day in mid-March, the state-run newspaper China Daily reported, citing industry statistics. It said prices for Shanghai residential properties fell about 9 percent from the previous month to $980 per square meter in April. In the past two months the government has raised taxes on real estate transactions and enacted other measures designed to discourage speculative dealing in property that it said had pushed real estate prices to unsustainable levels, pricing most local residents out of the market. Although prices in central Shanghai remain near record levels, the pace of transactions has slowed. And in suburban areas prices have plunged by as much as 40 percent, the newspaper reported. Sales of what the Chinese call "second-hand homes" have also plunged, with prices falling by as much as 20 percent, real estate brokers say. The crackdown on speculative trading and cutbacks in lending have left some property owners in debt and desperate to sell. Others are waiting to see how the market adjusts to the new rules. "The market is now at a turning point," the report quoted Lina Wong, managing director of Colliers International (East China), as saying. "The strong measures aimed at clamping down on property speculation will effectively curb demand and affect sales of apartments in new projects." Meanwhile, investment in Shanghai's real estate development market has slowed, another report said. Property investments totaled $4.2 billion in the first four months of this year. That's up 16 percent from the same period a year earlier. However, the increase for the first three months was near 30 percent, indicating an abrupt slowdown in April, according to figures from the Shanghai Statistical Bureau. businessweek.com