Home purchasing restrictions outdated

After Hangzhou and Xi'an annulled their restrictions on nonlocal residents buying homes last week, only Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Haikou are still carrying out the policy that was introduced about 10 years ago with the aim of checking the bubbling of the housing market then.

To reboot the lackluster real estate market, which concerns many upstream and downstream industries, investment, consumption, national financial security and government revenue, it is projected that these cities will also adjust their restrictive policies in the near future. The national housing inventory for sale now has already exceeded its historical high in 2015.

Therefore the policymakers urgently need to release effective purchasing power, activate housing market transactions, hedge against declining demand, restore market momentum, and stabilize price signals and market expectations.