Slowdown hits housing prices in big cities

Downtrend indicates that market regulations have taken effect, eliminating the housing price bubble, says expert

by Asia Times staff February 26, 2018February 18, 2020

Taking out a mortgage seemed like a good idea at the time. In this picture, staff set up model apartments as they prepare a real estate exhibition in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. File photo: Reuters

Employees set up model apartments as they prepare a real estate exhibition in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Photo: Reuters — Taking out a mortgage seemed like a good idea at the time. In this picture, staff set up model apartments as they prepare a real estate exhibition in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. File photo: Reuters

Home prices in Chinese first-tier cities saw negative year-on-year growth in January for the first time in 32 months, Shanghai Securities Journal reported, citing data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

According to the bureau, 11 out of 15 hotspot cities saw a drop in the sales price of new commercial residential buildings, a decline of 0.1 to 3.4 percentage points.

And current sales prices are lower than that of the same period last year.

Yan Yuejin, research director of the Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute, said the slowdown indicates that market regulations have taken effect, eliminating the housing price bubble.

A similar trend is expected to continue in the first quarter of 2018, Yan added.

One reply on “Slowdown hits housing prices in big cities”

Galen Linder says:

February 26, 2018 at 2:44 PM

In the US, the housing bubble exploded in 2008 during the financial crisis. In the years leading up to the crisis, Alan Greenspan, the Chair of the Federal Reserve and Wall Street lauded increasing house prices as "wealth creation". Nobody suggested that measures be taken to deflate the bubble before it burst. Today, there is another housing bubble. Again, nobody is worried. I will not end well.

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