China Cuts Rates As Housing Continues To Slow

The People’s Bank of China cut a key rate and injected capital into lending markets after factory output and retail sales weakened in July…(Reuters)

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it was lowering the rate on 400 billion yuan ($59.33 billion) of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions by 10 basis points (bps) to 2.75%, from 2.85%

It wasn’t just factory output and retail sales that slowed in July, housing also saw was in the red for the month. Government data reported that the average new home prices in China’s 70 major cities decreased by 0.9% year-over-year. This was the third straight month of decrease in new home prices. Making matters worse, South China Morning Post says tens of millions of empty units could pull the housing market even further down…(SCMP)

The average vacancy rate in mainland China is 12.1 per cent, according to BRI, meaning millions of empty units could flood the market…Now the property boom is over, the unoccupied homes are beginning to feel like a burden for their anxious owners.

There could be as many as 50 million vacant flats in China…