When home prices in China's Shenzhen city rose 58 percent in the last year, the city government introduced some measures to tighten the policy and cool the red hot housing market.
As previously discussed here on Realty Today, Shenzhen rolled out a stricter housing policy in March. It raised the deposit requirements for first-time homebuyers who secured mortgages in the past two years and for some second-home buyers from 30 percent to 40 percent down payment. Also, non-local buyers who are looking into purchasing properties in the city will only be qualified if they have paid income tax and social security premiums for the past three years.
But while the city saw a decline in new home transactions in five consecutive weeks ending April 3, the new policy seems to have little impact on luxury homes. As reported by South China Morning Post, sales of new high-end apartment climbed 35 percent in March to 725 units compared to the previous month. Data from property agency Centaline revealed this is 14 percent of the total new market which is the highest level so far since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Centaline data also showed that in March, the average selling price of high-end apartments in the city slightly fell to 81,825 yuan per square meter.
According to the publication, The Peninsula phase three, that was just recently launched, sold 409 flats or more than 80 percent of the ones for sale last weekend. At an average price of 10 million yuan per unit, the project, developed by Nan Hai Corporation, was able to generate sales amounting to 5.2 billion yuan.
"The tightened policy would have some impact on the market in the short term, especially transactions for second-hand homes," said Du Jinsong, head of Asia property research at Credit Suisse.
