Op-Ed Contributors

Property market may follow Japan's trajectory

By Gao Shanwen (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-17 09:02
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Property market may follow Japan's trajectory

A series of new policies issued by the State Council, the country's Cabinet, to cool down soaring property prices have again made people wonder about the housing market's future trend. What other tightening measures are likely to follow? Will housing prices see a continuous "downturn", will the drop be short-term or will there be sharp fluctuations?

What can be predicted, though, is that China's existing economic structure cannot sustain fast GDP growth in the long run, and a series of accumulated systemic problems, including the real estate price "bubble", will finally overwhelm the economy by, say, 2012. Albeit, during this time, the authorities will take more rigorous macro-control measures if the economy faces inflation.

From the second half of 2011, serious inflation will probably lead to stricter macroeconomic regulations, resulting in the slowing down of economic growth. China passed the "Lewis turning point" and shifted from being a labor-surplus economy to one with labor shortage some time between 2003 and 2006. The uneven economic growth pattern which relies on cheap labor forces will end with the cleaning-up of local financing platform and bursting of the property market "bubble".

Prices in the property market, especially the housing market in first-tier cities, have crossed all limits. In the next two or three years, the housing market will therefore experience moderate adjustments. Housing prices will fall slowly and trading volume will increase at a speed below the average.

The negative impact of the "bubble" burst on economic growth would be limited to within 2 percentage points, marked by falling investments in the real estate sector and overcapacity of upstream industries.

The real economy, compared with the property market, is becoming more attractive. Although because of short-term economic fluctuations the real economy is faced with overcapacity, China has been gradually consuming the accumulated excess capacity since 2008. The moderately easy monetary conditions are expected to end, with the scale of trade surplus declining systemically and the contribution of initiative credit creation reducing gradually.

The subsiding of the factors supporting the real estate "bubble" means it has reached an advanced stage, a stage where it is highly likely to burst because a short-term adjustment with a sharp drop is not at hand.

First, there will not be any change in ample liquidity in the short term. With tightening real estate financing boundaries, declining trade surplus and mounting pressure of inflation, liquidity cannot lead to immediate shortage as in 2008. Therefore, housing demand is not expected to contract sharply.

Second, the banking system is unlikely to collapse or to limit credit issuance strictly in the short to medium term. So the housing market will not follow the trend seen in the US.

Third, supply in the real estate sector is less stressful, and the adjustments of 2008 have made housing developers more prudent. Regardless of the base quota factor, the growth rates of real estate investment and new constructions are lower than the average. And corporate debt ratio and cash flow are stronger than in 2008. So as long as demand does not plummet, developers should be able to adjust supply by controlling the pace of development.

I think this is the toughest regulation policy on the real estate market. Adjustments are expected in the tax policy, too. The housing market "bubble", especially in the country's first- and second-tier cities, has reached an advanced stage. So, it will create an impact on real estate sales and prices in the next one or two quarters. And, finally the government's new policy to rein in the housing market could be the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

I tend to believe that in the next two or three years, the property market will experience a relatively slow adjustment, the growth of housing trading volume will be lower than the average level - say, 25 percent (while a certain growth rate could still be guaranteed) - and housing prices will see correction or slow but continuous decline. The situation will be somewhat like Japan's slow adjustment process after the 1990s.