The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) has stated in a new report that China’s real estate market will likely see a short-term adjustment in major cities under the impact of policy measures. In March this year, the authorities in Shanghai announced a new policy restricting the number of people qualified to buy real estate. For example, a person seeking to buy a house now needs to have made social insurance contributions for five years, instead of for two years previously - a move which has excluded a lot of migrant workers from buying property in Shanghai. This measure and similar measures in other major cities in China have prevented the overheating of the real estate market in big cities in China. Accordingly, it is expected that housing prices in major cities in China will decrease to some extent in 2016-17.
In the January-April period of the current year, the total area of newly constructed buildings increased by 21.4 percent year on year, with this growth rate 2.2 percentage points higher than that recorded in the January-March period this year, while in the January-May period year-on-year growth slowed further to 18.3 percent. Market insiders state that short-term adjustments seen in the real estate market will likely have a negative impact on demand in the domestic steel industry.