Shanghai restricts home purchases as prices soar

[Eric Cartman]

Shanghai authorities have imposed limits on home buying in an attempt to cool the city's property market. Families in Shanghai will temporarily be allowed to buy only one more home, and banks must restrict mortgages.

It follows moves by the central government to curb property speculation on the back of big price rises.

Earlier this week, authorities in Shenzhen announced that anyone owning two houses or more would be stopped from buying further properties.

The Shanghai regional government said it would limit the amount of mortgages banks can issue, and that it is preparing to trial the launch of a real estate tax. The authority said it had ordered banks to suspend loans for third-home buyers and that it will further regulate the operations of property developers. No details were given about how long the buying rule would be in force.

The act follows the April announcement where by the Chinese Gov introduced a series of new regulatory restrictions on the housing market that sought to restrict speculative buying.

These included higher down-payments on house purchases, stricter lending rules for property developers, and limits on the ability of investors to buy more than one home.

Many economists, investors and policymakers - both inside and outside China - worried that Chinese real estate may be experiencing a bubble brought on by excessively low interest rates, which has fuelled speculators.

Financial markets are now assessing whether Beijing will successfully pull off a soft landing in housing prices, or whether the Chinese property market will now deflate in the same painful way the US market has done since 2007.

The property market restrictions are just one dimension of a general move by Beijing to cool the economy down, in the face of accelerating inflation.

The Chinese government had encouraged an unprecedented expansion in bank lending last year in order to weather the global recession. Now it wants to stop that expansion.

 

[Alpha]

House prices in Shanghai are beyond ridiculous. When real estate finally crashes it is going to be spectacular.

 

[Mziba]

Alpha you dig the digits,. Thnk you sir, maam or whatever you are, out there. JF, let me tell ya. They should have seen this one comming. But I tell you, i give them credit for making it even worse. Now investors will begin to look somewhere else. The next frontier is Africa. But Africa got covered by big dudes, like Bill Gates, the former Google CEO, Clinton, (oh yeah, this clinton). Buffet, even bush is ready to help Africa. So, Africa has super capitalist to ask on there side. Thats all i am saying. Let's us make sustainable growth, tupande miti mingi tupate hela ilhali tunatengeneza mazingira bora kwa wote, even the chinese and the americans and every body in the world. Let grow our eco systems while earning Income to buy tv and send kids to school. I think, communist party is in trouble. The are the welthiest in China. So as any greed person would, the figured they know how to control free market. I do not know how they gonna put a stop kill on this one. The cat is out of the box. They should work on changing the communist party constitution, the govenment single handedly interfere with business and public welfare. so, what people gonna do with money on hand. They will do what the chinese do well with cash. Gamble, i think if it ok with your self to invest in casinos, the stoped funds in serculation will move there. For centuries chinese are known to fond of this board game. Yesterday the dow move up a notch, so probably money have begun to shift back to other market. We have seen how us landed on its ass. I do not know how its going to land, but I think its gonna hurt a little. depends on how it falls.