Land market at 5-year high

By HU YUANYUAN (China Daily) Updated: 2013-07-01 03:12

He Meng, a marketing director at Maoyuan Real Estate Co, said the latest tightening policies have had a limited effect on high-end projects.

"Wealthy buyers can handle further increases in down-payments," said He. She was responsible for the marketing of Eothen — a high-end project along the capital's northeast third ring road with a unit sales price of more than 60,000 yuan per sq m. The contracted sales value of the project stood at 348 million yuan in the first five months this year, exceeding the property developer's expectations.

The company plans to build 44 luxury apartments soon, taking advantage of the recent market rebound.

The rigorous measures on home purchase qualification and pricing limitation, however, will partly dent demand and the market, He added.

Beijing authorities said that single adults with a hukou — a registered permanent residence — in the city are allowed to purchase only one apartment, as opposed to two previously. And the government will also not grant sales licenses to projects priced "much higher" than the average rate in the region.

"Because we received the sales license before this round of tightening, our project is not subject to the pricing limitation policy. But this policy will definitely have a far-reaching effect on the market because there is almost no way for property developers to increase their sales prices by large amounts," He said.

Based on the rosy forecast for the market, Maoyuan Real Estate is actively seeking opportunities to boost its land parcels.

Statistics from Centaline Group also showed the country's top 10 property developers spent 16.2 billion yuan in boosting land parcels in May, up 26 percent over the previous month.

Moreover, the asset-liability ratio of listed property developers saw a slide in 2012, the first drop since 2009, according to a TOP 10 research report by the China Index Academy and Real Estate Institute of Tsinghua University.

The ratio of listed property developers in Shanghai and Shenzhen stood at 62.27 percent by the end of 2012, down 1.16 percentage points on the previous year.

"Profitability is also expected to rebound this year because of their improved cost management," said Jiang Yunfeng, research director of China Index Academy.

The gross profit margin of listed property developers stood at 37.95 percent in the first quarter, while their net profit margin stood at 14.13 percent, both higher than the same period last year, the report showed.