Nomura positive on long-term demand in China's property market

BEIJING - Demand in China's property market will continue to be strong in the coming 5 to 10 years, Asian investment bank Nomura said Monday.

"We are upbeat on China's real estate demand in the medium and long term," Elly Chen, head of China real estate research at Nomura, said during a media teleconference.

She cited a relatively low urbanization rate, strong wealth effect and robust income growth as supporting factors for the country's property market.

In the short term, the market will be stable due to the government's control measures, Chen said, predicting sales in 2018 to be flat with last year.

China's housing market had a red hot start to 2017 with soaring prices in some major cities, but ended on a cool note after local governments rolled out a string of restrictive measures echoing the central government's call that "housing is for living in, not for speculation."

About 110 cities and government agencies introduced more than 270 restrictions to tame the housing market, with Beijing implementing over 30 cooling policies, according to Centaline Property.

The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that new residential home prices went down in December on a yearly basis in nine of the 15 major cities considered the "hottest markets."

Over the past month, several cities have adjusted their housing policies, including easing purchase controls in certain areas and offering subsidies for young professionals to settle.

Chen said the local policy changes were not expected to alter the overall tone of property curbs as the government remained keen to keep the market stable.

She also expects industrial consolidation to continue this year, with big developers more capable of pooling resources and funds, and likely to grab larger market shares.