Urban drive offers hope for China property

[DONGGUAN, China] The days of rapid growth in China's real estate sector are over, but the government's urbanisation drive will continue to drive demand for the next 15 years, the country's biggest residential property developer China Vanke Co Ltd said.

After climbing at double-digit rates through most of last year, home prices in China started cooling in late 2013, with the annual growth in average new home prices slowing to an 11-month low in April as a sustained campaign to clamp down on speculative investment and easy credit gained traction.

Vanke president Yu Liang said the slowdown heralded the end of the golden era for Chinese real estate, but said the outlook remained healthy thanks in part to urbanisation.