China: Real estate investments grow in January-November 2017

A year-on-year growth of 7.5% was recorded in investments in Chinese real estate from January to November 2017, however the pace of growth slowed. Investments in residential buildings grew by about 10% over the same period of 2016.

In the first eleven months of 2016 the land area purchased by the real estate development enterprises was up by 16% year-on-year and the pace of expansion grew.

Last year property sales slowed because of measure introduced by the government to cool an over-heated market.

The unexpected effect of the government action has been to concentrate real estate development in the hands of the major companies at the expense of smaller enterprises say analysts. This has occurred as the larger companies have better access to credit from banks, better access to land via regional governments and because they successfully weathered the housing market downturn in 2016.

According to China Index Academy, an independent property research organisation, the market share of the top 10 developers in Beijing grew from 35% to 49% between 2016 and 2017 a trend that has been observed in other major cities across China.