Times Series

Chinese property 1. What are causing the high house prices? 2. What do you learn from the passage? Evidence of slackening Chinese loan growth is a relief all round. Moral suasion, more stringent capital requirements and the usual seasonal lull reduced July's net new loans to the lowest level since Beijing started stimulating in earnest last November. But there are few signs, as yet, of a let-up in property loans, in spite of official murmurings of a bubble. At $28bn, medium to long-term lending to households – most of which was mortgages – was almost as high as it was in June ($31bn), when credit officers were under orders to expand balance sheets without fear or favour. This can be tolerated, for now. Talk of a bubble seems premature, so soon after last year's property slump. July's official year-on-year rise in house prices was just 1 per cent – a fraction of the average 5.5 per cent monthly rise since But the ingredients – low real rates, ample liquidity – are there. For the first seven months, housing sales were up 65 per cent in value. Already-tight supply is becoming tighter.

Chinese property According to China Index Academy, a consultancy, unsold inventory across the 15 largest cities fell from 17 months of stock to eight, between December and June. Property stocks, up more than 135 per cent this year, are the best performers on the Shanghai Composite index. Last year's measures to curb speculation – when monthly year- on-year property rises shrank from 11.3 per cent to zero – were supposed to remind homebuyers, developers and local governments that prices do not rise forever. Some micro- tightening can already be seen in particularly toppy markets like Shanghai. Yet in the 60th anniversary year of the founding of the People's Republic, the comforting sensation of personal wealth created by rising house prices needs to be sustained. Given the choice between pricking asset inflation or cementing economic recovery, Beijing will live with the bubbles.