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China property
BusinessChina Business

China’s developers keep their investment powder dry even as home sales improved in the first 4 months of 2023

  • Property sales grew 8.8 per cent in the first four months after rising by 4.1 per cent in the first quarter of the year, government data released on Tuesday shows
  • Investment in property development fell 6.2 per cent in the first four months, dipping from a 5.8 per cent fall in the first quarter

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Visitors take in the view from the observation deck at Shanghai Tower. Home sales have been strong in the Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta area and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, thanks to demand in tier-1 cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Photo: Bloomberg
Elise Makin Beijing
Chinese developers continued to sell more homes in the first four months of 2023, replenishing their war chests, but remained cautious about investing in the bruised property sector.
Property sales grew 8.8 per cent to 3.98 trillion yuan (US$570.7 billion) in the first four months after rising by 4.1 per cent in the first quarter of the year, government data released on Tuesday shows. Home sales were particularly strong, rising 11.8 per cent up until April after gaining 7.1 per cent in the first three-month period.
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Demand in the property market “has been released quickly” since the start of the year, Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, said on Tuesday, adding that home sales had been strong in the Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta area and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Tier-1 cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen have been supporting demand in these regions.

The positive sales data indicates “quite some bottom fishing activities in the home buying market”, said Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at investment bank ING.

Moody’s changed its tune on Chinese property on Monday, revising its outlook for the sector from negative to stable on the basis of better sales and funding conditions for developers.
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To revive the property market, Beijing has been rolling out easing measures such as encouraging lower mortgage rates for first-time homebuyers, which stand at around 4.01 per cent on average in a hundred mainland Chinese cities, according to Beike Research Institute.
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