Can house prices endure a “comprehensive correction” without severe collateral damage? That, according to Xu Shaoshi, China's minister of land and resources, is what lies in store for the domestic property market as early as the fourth quarter. And this, he says, will be no mere slowdown in price rises: “Prices will fall in some areas.”
A taming of the market would be good news for China. Consumers in many regions are exhibiting classic bubble behaviour: servicing multiple mortgages in the hope that capital appreciation compensates for tiny, or even non-existent rental yields. But if Mr Xu is anticipating a repeat of the last, very orderly decline in house prices, he may be disappointed. Last time the nationwide property index dropped on a year-on-year basis, it did so for just six months, between December 2008 and May 2009, before resuming steady rises. However, that was a period in which constraints were mostly on the supply side, as Beijing shut off bank lending to developers. This time, it is the demand side that has suffered at least a dozen rounds of tightening since the end of last year.
Restrictions on downpayments and purchases by non-residents, among others, have removed many of the props that buttressed prices 18 months ago. And unlike in June last year, when the year-on-year falls were ultimately washed away by stimulus-related liquidity, China has little room for further monetary loosening. Lending and deposit rates are already at decade-lows, while banks are reining in their formerly rampant asset growth.