Bo Ya

China's real estate industry has seen obvious signs of recovery as shown in the latest statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

China completed investment amounting to RMB1,450.5 billion in real estate development in the first half of this year, an increase of 9.9% year on year, and the growth was 3.1 percentage points higher than that in the first five months. Of this, investment in commodity residential building reached RMB1,018.9 billion, up 7.3%, which was also 3.1 percentage points higher than that in the first five months, and accounted for 70.2% of the total investment in the real estate development.

Housing areas under construction by real estate development enterprises reached 2.397 billion square meters in the first six months, up 12.7% year on year. The growth was 1 percentage point higher than the first five months. Housing areas newly starting construction were 479 million square meters, down 10.4%, down 5.8 percentage points from the first five months. Completed areas of housing reached 207 million square meters, up 22.3% year on year, down 0.3 percentage points from the first five months, including 170 million square meters of residential buildings, up 22.9%, but down 0.7 percentage points from the first five months.

Meanwhile, real estate development enterprises purchase land with a total area of 136.44 million square meters, down 26.5% year on year, and completed land development of 110.10 million square meters, down 15.2%.

The country's sales of housing reached 341.09 million square meters in January-June, jumping 31.7% year on year, of which sales of areas of residential buildings went up 33.4%, that of office buildings up 7.6%, and buildings for commercial use up 16.4%. The sales value reached RMB1.58 trillion, surging 53% year on year, of which sales of commodity residential buildings went up 57.1%; and that of office buildings and buildings for commercial use up 19.9% and 30.2% respectively.

For sources of funds for real estate development enterprises, the total supply of funds in the first half reached RMB2370.3 billion, rising 23.6% year on year. Of this, the domestic loans amounted to RMB538.1 billion, up 32.6%; use of foreign funds, RMB24.3 billion, down 29.7%; self-raised funds by enterprises, RMB824.1 billion, up 10.4%; and other funds, RMB983.7 billion, up 34.7%; of the other sources of funds, deposit and pre-payment funds reached RMB575.8 billion, up 27.7%; and individual mortgage loans, RMB282.9 billion, up 63.1%.

The country's prices of new homes in 70 large and medium-sized Chinese cities nationwide increased 0.8% in June from May, and the month-on-month growth rate was 0.2 percentage points higher over the figure in May; and went up 0.2% over the same period last year, (which dropped 0.6% in May). Of this selling price of newly-built residential building dropped 0.6% on year, which was 0.7 percentage points smaller than May, but up 0.8% month on month, 0.1 percentage point larger than the growth in May.

The number of cities with year-on-year newly built home selling price rises reached 34 in June, of which 5 reported the biggest hike rates, namely Yinchuan with a growth of 5.7%; Jinzhou with 4.9%; Lanzhou with 4.6%; Xining with 4.5%; and Ningbo with 4.4%. The number of cities with price drops was 36, of which 5 reported the fastest drops, namely, Shenzhen with 6.6%; Shijiazhuang with 6.5%; Xuzhou with 5.4%; Guilin with 5.0%; and Nanjing with 4.4%. 63 cities reported month-on-month price hikes for newly-built homes in June, of which 5 cities presented the big price hikes, namely, Guangzhou city reporting a 3.6% rise; Jilin, up 3.1%; Wenzhou, up 2.9%; Baotou, up 2%; and Kunming, up 2%; while two cities reported price drops, namely Dali, down 1.6% and Shaoguan, down 0.1%.

In June, selling prices of second-hand homes rose 2.2% on year, which was 1.3 percentage points larger than May, and up 1.1% on month, which was 0.4 percentage points bigger than May.

Prices of non-residential building hiked 0.2% on year in June, and 0.5% on month, of which price of office buildings went up 2.4%; price of commercial-use buildings fell 0.4%; and prices of other-purpose housing down 5.3%.

The climate index on China's real estate development was 96.55 in June, up 0.61 points higher than May. Of this, the sub-index on real estate development investment was 93.60, up 0.47 points over May; sub-index on fund sources was 98.73, up 2.11 points; sub-index on land development areas, 92.39, down 0.16 points; sub-index on vacant housing areas, 88.59, down 0.46 points; and sub-index on housing construction areas, 93.89, down 0.04 points.

China's land prices are is making an upward turn in the market. Since May, there are several cases of land purchase at astonishing prices in such cities as Beijing, Shanghai, Ningbo and Chongqing. On June 30, the No.15 land block in Guangqumen of Beijing was sold at a high price of RMB4.06 billion.