Domestic property sales ticks up on influx of subsidized housing

Property transactions rose sharply in 36 out of 40 cities surveyed in the week ending November 18, with Harbin, in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, recording the highest weekly growth of 971.67 percent year-on-year, according to the latest industry figures.

Based on the findings, China Index Academy, a property research organization under China's online real estate firm Soufun, now suggests that the total sales performance for November will hit record levels.

The latest figures come on the back of others from real estate consultancy firm Centaline Group, which showed that in 54 cities tracked in the first 18 days of November, 171,735 units of newly-built apartments were sold, which marked a rise of 45.5 percent month-on-month.

Beijing alone saw 9,054 units sold, the highest amount in nearly two years, and Shanghai almost doubled its transactions on a monthly basis to 10,692 units.

However, Zhang Xu from Homelink, a Beijing-based real estate consultancy, was quoted on Economic Information Daily as suggesting residential transactions in November actually fell if data compilers exclude the sale of government subsidized homes.

"The major cause for the trade rebound is that a large amount of government subsidized houses have entered the market," he said

Zhang said he believed that by Nov 18, only 5,170 units of newly built apartments were sold in Beijing, meaning that more than 40 percent of the apartments sold in the Capital are government subsidized homes.

Other latest industry figures from Centaline Group show that rising sales have cut inventories by 2.9 percent compared to September.

Zhang Dawei, research head of Centaline Beijing said half of the benchmark developers have already reached their sales goal for this year, with average sales completion rates sitting at 99 percent.