A real estate project under construction in Shanghai’s newer Pudong district on February 23, 2023.
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BEIJING — More and more people in China want to buy a home again, according to a first-quarter survey released by the People’s Bank of China on Monday.
The proportion of respondents planning to buy a home in the next three months rose to 17.5% in the first quarter. Survey data shows this rate is up from 16% in the fourth quarter survey and the highest since the first quarter of 2022.
Market expectations also improved. The survey found that 18.5% of respondents expect house prices to rise, up sharply from 14% in the fourth quarter and the highest since the third quarter of 2021.
The increase follows the end of China’s Covid control measures. Central and local governments have also rolled out support for real estate purchases and developments last year.
In the summer of 2022, some Homebuyers decide not to pay their mortgage After Covid and financial difficulties, investors did not deliver the apartments on time. Homes are often purchased before completion in China.
Signs of real estate reversal
Other reports suggest an upcoming change in China’s property market.
In March, house prices rose for the first time in more than seven months.
That’s according to a study of 100 cities that showed the average price per square meter for a new apartment increased 0.02% month-on-month to 16,178 yuan ($219 per square foot) due to the Index System. China Real Estate released over the weekend (CREIS), a consulting firm.
Market trends vary across the country.
In terms of floor space, CREIS research shows that trading volume in the cities of Hangzhou and Tianjin in the first quarter doubled from a year ago, compared with China’s largest cities only increasing. 0.2%.
In addition, property management firm JLL said the luxury housing market in Beijing saw a 20% increase in transactions in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter.
Most people still like to save
The PBOC survey shows that most people still tend to save, even though China ended its strict control measures because of Covid in December.
In the first three months of the year, the proportion of respondents who said they wanted to save fell 3.8 percentage points from the previous quarter to a still relatively high 58 percent.
The central bank survey shows that during the pandemic, people’s propensity to save skyrocketed to a record high.
The share of respondents saying they like to spend rose 0.5 percentage points to 23.2%, the first-quarter survey showed.
Education and healthcare are by far the most popular spending categories, while travel saw a significant jump from the fourth quarter.
The central bank’s quarterly survey covers about 20,000 people with savings deposits, spread across 50 cities in China.
