China is set to take further action including relaxing home-purchase restrictions as it scrambles to tackle a deepening crisis in its massive debt-riddled property sector, four people familiar with the matter said.
Regulators including the housing ministry, central bank and financial regulator in coming weeks will implement measures they have been working on over the past few months under State Council guidance, two of the people said.
The property sector accounts for roughly a quarter of the world's second-largest economy. However, it is in the throes of an unprecedented debt crisis that market participants fear could spread throughout the financial sector at home and beyond.
Proposed measures include lifting home-purchasing curbs in non-core districts of major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, said three of the people, who declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak with media.
Such curbs have been in place in many cities since 2010 and include restrictions on purchases by so-called unqualified non-residents and on the number of properties individuals can buy.
Many smaller locales have eased home-purchase curbs over the past two years to boost demand, but major cities - traditional targets of speculative buying - have held off.
Another proposed measure is to gradually remove price caps on new homes, widely in place for local governments to control home prices, two of the people said. That would effectively allow property developers to raise or lower home prices.
Authorities hope the measures will bolster consumer demand over the next few months, the people said, in a property sector that has been on a downward spiral since 2021 when the government took action to stop developers accumulating debt.
The government has already announced a string of support measures for the sector in recent weeks, against a backdrop of investor-spooking data indicating lacklustre economic growth and sagging consumer confidence.
The fifth-biggest city Guangzhou, tech hub Shenzhen and two other large cities said they would allow home buyers to enjoy preferential loans for first-home purchases regardless of credit records.
