Mortgage loans will be harder to get following the central bank's latest move to further tighten liquidity, Shanghai-based National Business Daily (NBD) reported Thursday.
The new rule issued by the People's Bank of China requires commercial banks to include margin deposits in their required reserves, which means restricted availability of credit may also reduce mortgage loans.
The newspaper reported several banks in Beijing had already suspended mortgage loans and increased down payments to 50 percent of home-loans. Other banks have also said that home-loan applications may become more difficult.
"We don't have any line of credit now and have suspended the individual mortgage business. Now we only give collateral loans based on property certificates for corporate purpose," a staff member of Minsheng Bank told the reporter.
State-owned banks such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd and China Construction Bank Corp have stated that their home-loan policies have not changed despite the tightened line of creidt, NBD reported.