Housing set to warm after 'cold season'
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The cost of housing in Beijing is unlikely to fall further, local property agents and house sellers said after modest declines in February.
They were commenting after both transaction volume and property prices fell last month compared to the numbers from a month earlier.
"Every year, the first two months are usually the 'cold season' for the real estate sector, especially this February, when Spring Festival took out seven days as holiday," said Zhang Dawei, chief researcher at property agent Centaline.
"In addition, the number of new housing projects was really small in February, only 12. We expect 52 new projects to enter the market in March. They may get a price of more than 20,000 yuan per sq m," Zhang said.
"In March, there may be a significant recovery in Beijing's property market."
Beijing's municipal government unveiled 11 polices in February aimed at making housing more affordable and tackling price manipulation. Industry insiders said the impact of the rules has been limited.
"Those polices were mild, and did not worsen the market situation," Zhang said. "For example, in the five-day period after the government's announcement, the transaction volume of second-hand houses was up 14 percent, reaching 449 apartments a day."
He said land shortages will continue to drive up the price.
"Only 50 percent of provided land can be used to build commercial apartments in Beijing this year, which helps push up the housing price."
Li Min, a salesman at Centaline, said he had been busy every day since starting his job on Feb 17.
"People are passionate about seeing apartments and though more than 80 percent may take a wait-and-see attitude, it's just a matter of time before they purchase a new house," he said.
Fang Xiaoqing, a saleswoman at Sunny Era, a high-end apartment project near Beijing's Shaoyaoju station, said that when the housing was at its hottest last year, her company sold 300 units in one day.
"I expect a hot market this year similar to the second half of last year," Fang told METRO. "We are preparing to market 200 apartments this month and many clients have already contacted with me and shown great interest in them."
Wang Yifan, a saleswoman with Poetry of River, a property close to Beijing's Central Business District, said prices there are likely to go up by 10 percent.
"I have not heard about any nearby projects planning to drop their price and neither will we," she said. "The average price is about 20,000 yuan per sq m in our neighborhood now."
According to statistics from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the number of commercial apartments sold in February fell by 33.9 percent to 11,061 from the 16,726 sold in January. But the volume was up 5.2 percent on the same period last year.
The average price of apartments sold in February fell slightly, to 18,590 yuan per sq m. The price was 4.5 percent lower than January's 19,500 yuan per sq m.
