Home sales up in holiday period

Home sales and inquiries by potential buyers rose considerably in benchmark cities including Beijing and Shanghai during the just-concluded National Day holiday, thanks to a number of optimization measures rolled out by the central government and first-tier cities, industry experts said on Tuesday.

This is playing a positive role in digesting the housing policies and shoring up market sentiment, they added.

After announcing policies to free up restrictions on home purchases ahead of the weeklong holiday, China's top-tier cities saw a market recovery during the holiday period, despite it being a conventional low season for home transactions, the experts said.

Some 59,000 square meters of new home space were traded across Shanghai in the first six days of October, doubling from that of last year's 29,000 sq m, said Lu Wenxi, a market analyst with Centaline Shanghai.

In the pre-owned homes market, 2,133 units of existing residential properties changed hands during the weeklong holiday, more than twice the 1,064 units registered during the same period last year, Lu said.

According to Lu, the market recovery followed a batch of favorable local policies effective on the first day of October, such as the lowering of a threshold for non-local buyers, reduction in down payments for both first-time and second home purchases, and expanding VAT exemptions during home trading.

"There is an evident warm-up in market confidence as we see some 20 percent rise in business inquiries and visits," said Ye Yongxiang, an agent with Sinyi Realty in Shanghai's Xuhui district.

Ye said it has been an extremely busy holiday season for himself as well as his colleagues, a sharp contrast from the same period during the past two years.

"Being in the business for nearly a decade, I can really feel the vibes of the market on the rise," Ye said.

Beijing saw new home transaction volumes surge 730 percent during the first six days of the month from the same period last year, and its existing home market also experienced a gradual growth since the latter half of the holiday, with trade volumes rising 58 percent compared to last year, according to a report on the official website of Beijing Youth Daily.

Guangzhou, the capital of South China's Guangdong province, saw more than 3,000 units of new homes traded at real estate brokerage platform Beike as of 2 pm Monday, more than tripling from that of last year, the local Guangzhou Daily reported.

The rising market demand could be seen in a broader scale in the secondary home market of major cities.

As many as 384 units of pre-owned homes were sold daily in six key cities, soaring 117.6 percent year-on-year, according to Linping Real Estate Data Research Institute.

"The market confidence index has been on an upward trend three weeks in a row, according to the weekly data collected in 50 cities, indicating that the supportive measures introduced one after another have boosted market confidence," said Wang Xiaoqiang, chief analyst at the institute.

"The encouraging messages delivered by both local and central governments will certainly help stabilize the property market and improve market confidence," Wang added.