China's Commercial Housing Sales Hit Record High in First Nine Months Despite Fall in September
Liao Shumin
DATE:  Oct 20 2017
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
China's Commercial Housing Sales Hit Record High in First Nine Months Despite Fall in September China's Commercial Housing Sales Hit Record High in First Nine Months Despite Fall in September

(Yicai Global) Oct. 20 -- China's commercial housing sales hit a record high in the first nine months of 2017, though the rate of growth fell by 2.4 percentage points compared with the first eight months of the year, data released yesterday by China's National Bureau of Statistics show.

Commercial housing sold in September came to an area of 174 million square meters, up by 43.3 percent compared with the month before but down by 1.5 percent from last year's 177 million square meters. This is the first annual decline seen in single-month commercial housing sales since the release of such data began in March 2015.

Increased real estate regulation in China is gradually taking effect, with speculative demand in now declining for 11 consecutive months in first-tier cities Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Second-tier cities have seen annual falling growth in new commercial residence prices for nine consecutive months, said Xing Zhihong, a spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics. 

The growth of real estate investment and sales is expected to slow further in the fourth quarter as the scope of the regulation keeps expanding. However, China's real estate sales figures are still likely to maintain positive growth due to de-stocking policies in third- and fourth-tier cities, Securities Daily reported.

Real estate enterprises are increasingly motivated to up their investments in response to the de-stocking. These firms purchased 167.3 million square meters of land in the first nine months, up by 12.2 percent compared with last year at a rate of growth 2.1 percentage points higher than that of the first eight months. Land transaction amounts totaled CNY814.9 billion (USD123 billion), an increase of 46.3 percent.

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Keywords:   Commercial Housing,PROPERTY,REAL ESTATE,National Bureau of Statistics