Property Investment In China Dips 9% YoY
China's fragile housing market opened this year with slower declines in property investment and sales, buoyed by government efforts to arrest a protracted downturn in the sector, official data showed on Monday. Property investment in China fell 9.0% year-on-year in the first two months of 2024, compared with a 24.0% fall in December 2023, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed. Property sales by floor area logged a 20.5% slide in January-February from a year earlier, compared with a 23.0% fall in December last year. Official property figures released last week showed the sector struggling to stabilise with home prices down 0.3% on a month-on-month basis in February, in line with a drop in January. China has been ramping up measures to reinvigorate its fragile property sector after a regulatory crackdown on developer leverage led to a snowballing liquidity crisis. Authorities launched a so-called "whitelist" mechanism in January, channelling funds from state banks into local property projects identified by city governments as justifiable for financing support. China last month announced its biggest ever reduction in the benchmark mortgage rates to prop up struggling real estate. However, market participants mostly remain unswayed with home buying and financing and construction starts for real estate firms continuing to fall.
Tags : housing market property investment sales property sector government