Greater Bay Area home sales surged in June after property market rescue package

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Demand for new homes in the Greater Bay Area rebounded last month after Beijing’s historic measures to rescue the property sector took effect

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Shenzhen saw a strong rebound in transactions last month, having eased home-purchasing restrictions and lowered mortgage rates to lure buyers late in May. Photo: Martin Chan

Mark Gong

Published: 7:00am, 24 Jul 2024

Demand for new homes in the Greater Bay Area rebounded last month after Beijing’s historic measures to rescue the property sector took effect. However, a meaningful recovery in prices will take time amid economic headwinds, property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield said on Tuesday.

Total transactions for new houses in the bay area numbered 28,584 in June, nearly 20 per cent more than in May, driven by a boost in demand that followed an unprecedented package of government easing measures. The year-on-year decline narrowed to 8.5 per cent in June from 35 per cent in May.

The Greater Bay Area (GBA) is the government blueprint encompassing Hong Kong, Macau and nine mainland cities in Guangdong, which China aims to develop into an enormous economic and business hub.

Cushman expects some 180,000 new homes to change hands in the second half of the year, up from 133,000 in the first six months. This would further narrow the annualised decline to 20 per cent over the period and take transactions for the whole of 2024 to around 310,000.

“We believe that the GBA residential transaction volume will gradually expand in the second half of the year,” said Alva To, vice-president for Greater China at Cushman & Wakefield.

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He credited Beijing’s ambitious rescue package launched in May that included a 300 billion yuan relending facility to clear excess inventory, as well as positive messages about further market reforms that emerged from this month’s third plenum, a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party that laid out China’s economic road map for the medium term.