China vows to accelerate buying unsold homes for public housing
The real estate slowdown has dragged down everything from the job market to consumption and household wealth
CHINA’S housing regulator pledged to speed up the purchase of unsold apartments and turn them into affordable housing, its latest effort to cushion a record property slump.
The government will also push forward renting and selling public housing units as soon as possible when conditions are right, Vice-Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Dong Jianguo said in a briefing in Beijing on Friday (Aug 23). The ministry didn’t unveil a volume target.
Chinese authorities are trying to quickly implement a new housing model and put a floor under the prolonged property crisis. The real estate slowdown, now into its fourth year, has dragged down everything from the job market to consumption and household wealth.
President Xi Jinping unveiled sweeping goals last month to bolster the finances of China’s indebted local governments and give them more autonomy in regulating property markets, though details have so far been limited.
The country is now considering a new funding option for local governments to buy unsold homes after a series of rescue packages failed to prop up the market, Bloomberg News reported this week. That’s on top of a 300 billion yuan (S$55 billion) central bank fund announced in May.
The ruling Communist Party last month pledged to accelerate a new housing model that emphasises renting. The country will also build and supply more affordable residences to meet the needs of working-class people, the top leadership said after a key meeting in Beijing last month.
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China has long sought to transform the housing market for younger, first-time homebuyers who have been pushed out by spiralling home values.
In 2017, Xi delivered his now-famous mantra that “houses are built to be inhabited, not for speculation”, which aimed to tame runaway property prices and push a housing model that emphasises renting.
Apart from the purchases in the works, the housing ministry is asking local governments to strengthen planning and prearrangement of such purchases for 2025 and 2026, according to the vice-minister.
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China has also started the construction of 235 projects for affordable housing and urban village resettlement, with an investment of more than 440 billion yuan in the first seven months of the year, the vice-minister added. BLOOMBERG
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