More defaults expected at China’s property trusts – Today’s China Real Estate Links | December 6, 2013

Here is a list of the day’s latest China real estate news collected from around the web:

• More defaults expected at China’s property trusts

  China’s property trust sector will probably suffer more defaults in the next two years as thousands of small developers will be squeezed out of business by intensifying competition amid policy tightening by the government, industry analysts said.

  A record amount of funds has recently been raised by trust firms to help finance property projects as developers and investors have been encouraged by strong housing demand and rising home prices despite repeated efforts from the government to cool down the real estate market.

• Chinese cities reap record land sales revenue

  China’s four largest cities reaped record revenues from land sales in the first 11 months of 2013 as the property market continued to thrive despite the government’s property purchase limits.

  Land sales in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen rocketed 181.72 percent from one year earlier to 472.04 billion yuan (about 77 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-November period, Thursday’s Securities Daily reported, citing a report released by China Real Estate Information Corp.

• Real estate markets in smaller Chinese cities plays catch-up

  The spectre of ‘empty’ commercial complexes across Chinese cities and a precariously poised multi-layered property market have once again come to haunt the economy.

  According to planning officials, commercial complexes are in oversupply and particularly across the central and western regions. Nearly every mid-sized or even a small city has built, or plans to build, commercial complexes.”

• China’s top farm official reins in land reform expectations

  China’s new rural reforms will stop short of giving commercial firms free rein to buy land and will focus instead on creating bigger family farms, the country’s top rural official said in remarks published on Thursday.

  China last month unveiled its boldest land reforms in decades, officially allowing rural collectively owned land, a legacy of the planned economy, to be transferred, rented or pooled, but officials have called for caution, telling local governments not to “rush into action”.

• People’s Streets: What Will Walkable Urbanism Look Like in China?

  As Shanghai’s new Free Trade Zone amid announcement of policy reforms, there is much discussion over the its role in the future of Shanghai, and China’s economy. Few seem to be asking whether it will even have walkable streets, public transportation, and buildings with a mix of uses at a mix of scales.

  A Brookings Institution report has shown that walkability – a neighborhood’s accessibility by public transportation and on foot – influences a neighborhood’s economic performance.

• Taipei has housing bubble: Finance Minister

  Government officials said yesterday that the real estate market in Taipei City satisfies the conditions to be designated as a housing bubble.

  Finance Minister Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) and central bank Deputy Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) attended a Legislative session yesterday to report on the government’s progress in establishing a healthy real estate market.

• Property dims outlook for Hang Seng Index

  The Hang Seng Index is expected to continue to lag benchmark indices in Europe and Japan next year due to the heavy weighting it gives to sluggishly performing property shares and expectations of a price correction in the world’s most expensive housing market, market strategists said.

  “Chinese growth of around 7.5 per cent may not be enough to remove some of the challenges that have been built into asset prices in Hong Kong,” Thomas Poullaouec, the head of strategy and research at State Street Global Advisors, said in Hong Kong yesterday.

This list is updated daily, so tune in again tomorrow for more up to date information.

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