Residential land supplies plunge in first 11 months

BEIJING - China's residential land supplies in the first 11 months dropped by 15.3 percent from the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) on Tuesday.

The ministry said that the government had provided a total of 91,400 hectares of residential land during the January-November period this year.

Of the total, only 40,800 hectares were supplied in the first six months of 2012 as many land auctions failed amid the government's tightening measures on the commercial property market.

MLR officials expect land supplies for the whole year to be close to the level of 2011, which totaled about 96,700 hectares.

Residential land prices in the first three quarters rose 3.7 percent, 1.77 percent and 1.03 percent year on year respectively, according to the MLR.

In November, land prices showed an upward momentum as some property companies looked to replenish stockpiles while a number of cities expanded land supplies, MLR officials said.

Meanwhile, 53 out of a statistical pool of 70 major cities recorded higher new home prices in November, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. The figure was up from 35 in October.

According to a survey result unveiled by the People's Bank of China Tuesday, the central bank, showed that 29 percent of the 20,000 residents questioned believed home prices will rise in the next quarter. This is 10 percentage points higher than the level in the same period last year.

A total of 15.3 percent of the residents were willing to buy a house within three months, which is 1.5 percentage higher than the level of the same period last year, according to the survey.