China's new home prices rose in September at the fastest rate on record as buyers rushed to close contracts before new restrictive measures took effect in October. The boom in sales and prices was evident in mortgage lending, with new housing loans to individuals totalling 475.9 billion yuan in September alone, some 76 percent higher than the same month last year, central bank official Ruan Jianhong said in a news release.
Prices in China's 70 major cities rose 11.2 percent in September from a year earlier, accelerating from a 9.2 percent increase in August, as 64 of them saw year-on-year price gains, a National Bureau of Statistics survey showed on Friday. September's national price growth was the fastest since the series was started in 2011.
The property market, accounting for around 15 percent of gross domestic product, contributed handsomely to third quarter economic expansion of 6.7 percent. Hefei, capital city of Anhui province in central China, was the top performer, with prices surging 46.8 percent from a year earlier, quicker than its 40.3 percent rise in August.
The coastal city of Xiamen in south-eastern China, the top performer in August, came in second with a price rise of 46.5 percent, accelerating from 43.8 percent in the previous month. Beijing and Shanghai prices rose 27.8 percent and 32.7 percent on-year, quickening from 23.5 percent and 31.2 percent in August. Price growth in Shenzhen, a long-time top performer that gave way to Xiamen to be the second highest in August, fell slightly to 34.1 percent from 36.8 percent last month.
The house-prices-to-household-disposable-income ratio in first-tier cities has risen to be around 18 to 20 times in this year's housing fever, putting housing affordability close to Hong Kong's and making it less affordable than London, UBS wrote in a report, citing notoriously expensive cities. More than 20 cities have now adopted restrictive measures aiming to tame fast-rising prices, although 15 cities had implemented them in the first week of October.