An executive from one of Beijing's leading real estate firms says the secondhand property market is cooling because people would rather invest in stocks than reinvest back into real estate.

According to Hu Jinghui, vice-president of 5i5j, in the first quarter of this year, the trade volume of Beijing's secondhand houses surpassed 30,000 units, up 28.9 percent from the same period last year. The houses with area under 90 square meters made up more than 70 percent of the total.

After March 18, when the People's Bank of China, the central bank, announced a 0.27 percentage point hike in key interest rates, the auction listing volume of secondhand houses saw a 35 percent increase compared with before the hike, accounting for almost half of the total number of secondhand houses.

The growth rate of the auction listing volume of secondhand houses with an area of between 80 to 90 square meters increased by 12 percent, those that are 100 to 140 square meters grew 21 percent, and properties with morethan100 square meters soared to 36 percent, according to Hu.

Wang Zhiwei, marketing director for Beijing Homelink Real Estate Consultant Co Ltd said, from March 1 to March 20, the auction listing volume of secondhand houses with an area of more than 140 square meters and a price of more than 12,000 yuan per square meter grew 21 percent compared with the same period in January of this year.

According to Meng Qi, marketing manager for Century 21 China Real Estate, the interest rate hikes not only affected the auction listing volume of secondhand houses in Beijing, but also in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Decreasing returns from property investment is the major reason for the surge in the auction listing volume. For example, the average monthly rent of a 960,000 yuan mid-sized house in Beijing's Central Business District is about 3,500 yuan. When other costs are taken into account, including taxes, property management fees and heating fees, the annual return is less than four percent. So some investors sell their houses to get out of the property market and invest in the stock market instead. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained more than 20 percent from March 19 to now, far higher than house price increase.

A new policy, called The Management Measures on Individual House Rent in Beijing, is expected to begin in October this year, where homeowners will see another five-percent tax on their house rent, further affecting investors' earning rate.

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