Beijing’s municipal authorities announced further measures on Friday to relax home-buying curbs, as they try to prop up flailing home prices in the Chinese capital. China’s housing market slump, now in its fifth year, has been constraining household consumption and worsening the economy’s imbalance between strong industrial supply and weak domestic demand — a continued key focus for authorities. At its peak, China’s property market accounted for a quarter of the country’s economy, but it has been struggling with a debt crisis since mid-2021.
Beijing’s municipal commission of housing and urban-rural development said that, effective August 8, it would cut the insurance or income-tax payment requirement for non-Beijing families buying homes within the Fifth Ring Road — a major expressway ringing the central area that had been exempt from previous rounds of loosening. Non-local residents without a Beijing “hukou” (household registration) can now buy homes anywhere in the capital if they have made consecutive income-tax payments or social-insurance contributions in the city for at least one year, down from two years previously.
The announcement also raised caps on housing provident fund loans: the maximum for single contributors rises to 1.2 million yuan (about US$178,000) for a first home, and to 2.4 million yuan for dual-income households, with further top-ups of up to 600,000 or 1 million yuan available for buyers in outer districts, green-certified housing, or families with two or more children.
References
Reuters, via Investing.com — China’s Beijing further relaxes homebuying curb, authorities say
