Realty glut not a major concern for big cities

China's housing market is recovering, but unevenly. First-tier cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, have seen a real estate boom in the first two months of the year, with housing inventory dropping after the government issued a series of policies aimed at clearing the property glut across the country.

New home prices in January increased about 52.7 percent year-on-year in Shenzhen, followed by Shanghai (21.4 percent) and Beijing (11.3 percent), according to a recent report of the National Bureau of Statistics. In many third- and fourth-tier cities, however, a notable overhang of unsold houses continues to limit the expected increase in housing prices.

It is inappropriate to overstate the supply glut, though, because different methods can be used to measure the country's commercial housing inventory.