Falling home price changes Chinese family budget
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Xinhua, November 30, 2011
Zhu Jianying feels lucky that he held off from buying an apartment in the first half of this year. The Beijing property he is looking at has fallen in price by around 80,000 yuan (12,600 U.S. dollars) since then.
"It is not a big amount of money compared to the total price of one of these apartments, more than 1 million yuan, but 80,000 yuan is several years of saving," says Zhu, 29, an engineer working for an IT company in China's capital.
Zhu is one of many young prospective homebuyers in China who are pooling all resources to buy an apartment. The money Zhu and others can save from falling home price are likely not just to ease strains on their family budgets, but to have profound implications to the Chinese economy and society as a whole.
Zhu and his newlywed wife stay in a rented one-bedroom apartment. They are looking for a second-hand two-bedroom apartment near a metro station with a budget of 1.4 million yuan.
They plan to loan 800,000 from banks, the maximum amount Zhu is eligible to apply for. To get the remaining 600,000 yuan, the couple and their countryside-dwelling parents have pooled all their savings, including their "emergency funds."
Falling home prices make Zhu relieved. "As I spend less, I can pay back some money borrowed from my parents. They are old and vulnerable to illness. They need the money," he says.
For Zhu, it hurts that his parents are saving up at their age to help him. "For most average people in rural China, 80,000 yuan is a huge amount of money," he says.
He hopes the price could keep falling. Then the "surplus" money in his pocket would certainly come in useful. He and his wife are considering having a baby in one or two years. "When that happens, our family expenses will increase. We may need a car."
Zhu's story, in the eyes of Zhang Mo'nan, an associate researcher with China's National Information Center, has more than family budgetary implications given China's 1.3-plus billion population.
"The money people save from property market allows them to spend on other things. It will eventually translate into consumption power," says Zhang, adding that "excessive saving will not occur among those with big mortgage payments."
The drop in home price comes after the Chinese government's cooling measures on the overheated market in place for more than one year. China' s skyrocketing home price has been blamed for social and economic problems ranging from widening the gap between rich and poor to devouring consumption power of the middle and low-income classes.
"The newfound purchasing power of Zhu and his generation has a significant meaning to the economy," says Zhang. "A consumption-driven economy is what China should be going after. The world's second-largest economy has been heavily dependent on investment and export for growth in the past years."
Falling home prices change the way people spend, while they also change the way people invest.
Tian Yu, 28, living in Shenyang, capital city of northeast China's Liaoning Province, is preparing to open a shop selling kitchenware imported from the Republic of Korea.
"I was going to put the money into the property market," says Tian, who gave birth to a baby girl three months ago. "But the market is not good. I need a job. And I have always wanted to open a shop. So I'm doing it."
The home price in Tian's city is not falling. "But real estate agents tell me that it is very hard to sell a second-hand apartment now," she says. "The price may drop soon, as those in Beijing and Shanghai have fallen."
Tian at one point had set aside a budget of 250,000 yuan to buy an apartment for investment in the suburb of her city. "If the market is as good as it has been in the past two years, the apartment appreciates nearly 30 percent each year."
But now she has dropped the idea. "It is very difficult to lease an apartment in the suburbs. If home prices fall, I would definitely lose money," she worries.
Liu Shangxi says that falling prices force domestic and overseas investors in the Chinese property market to reassess their "expected returns."
China's home prices have been rising consistently for the past decade. Prices dropped remarkably in 2008, when the global financial crisis spread to China, but bounced back even more rapidly.
Liu says ordinary Chinese people, disappointed at the stock market, have transferred their money into property investment. Companies, lured by big returns from the property sector, have been dropping their main business. This trend is what formed the bubble in China's property market.
The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for China's manufacturing activity drops to 48 in November, the lowest level in 32 months, according to preliminary figures of banking giant HSBC. In contrast, fixed-asset investment in property rose by over 30 percent year-on-year in the first 10 months of 2011, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
It has been reported that Chinese companies, producing everything from microwaves to mineral water, have all invested in real estate. Capital in almost all markets has been finding its way to the property sector in this movement.
Liu Shangxi describes as "unbalanced development" the fact that the property sector is accounting for a bigger and bigger proportion of the economy while the real economy is shrinking.
Both Liu and Zhang hold that the regulatory measures have just started to take effect and the Chinese government should stick to its cooling policy to restore the market to stability.
China's economy expanded 9.1 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2011. Zhang says, though the growth is slowing from the first two quarters, it remains at a relatively high level, giving the authorities leeway for more price-controlling measures to squeeze that bubble out of the property sector.
In the next few quarters, Zhang says China's economic growth is likely to be slowed by a cooling in the property market, which has links with construction, decoration, consumer goods and a variety of other sectors.
"The government officials and Chinese people alike should accept a slower growth in the pursuit for healthier development," says Zhang.
Liu Shangxi considers a growth rate of between seven to eight percent "proper" for China. "China does not need such a high growth of over 9 percent."
Liu says the strict measures on property market should be kept for at least another two quarters to squeeze out the bubble.
"I won't look at home prices or GDP growth to assess when the measures should be phased out. I will examine the performance of Chinese manufacturers and the revival of small and medium-sized enterprises," he says.
As for concerns of loss of jobs in the construction sector, which employ China's vast migrant workers, Zhang Mo'nan says the government-led investment projects on housing for low-income families would help.
Official figures show that construction has started on 10 million apartments with the state subsidy so far this year, almost doubling that of last year. Given that one apartment under this scheme covers 50 to 60 square meters on average, the construction area is between 500 million to 600 million square meters. Last year, all new housing projects throughout China covered 1.6 billion square meters.
Zhang says if all the projects under the government scheme are carried out smoothly, it will help create jobs, a key objective of driving economic growth.
But she warns that local governments are acting reluctantly after the groundbreaking as the subsidized housing projects don't bring them money and partly rely them on fundraising.
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