Skip to content

Chief Economist: China’s Housing Market Will Always Go Up Unless Supply and Demand Are Balanced

On April 15, Chen Dongqi, Chief Expert and former Vice President of the Macroeconomic Research Institute which is under the National Development and Reform Commission spoke at the 2017 Top Chinese Economists Forum. Chen said that the imbalance between the supply of and demand for land and money is the root cause of housing prices being pushed up.

Chen said, “If you do not solve the supply and demand issue, prices for housing will continue to go up. Of course, they will not go up every day, every month, or even every year, but overall they will steadily go up … stabilizing for some time and then rising again.”

Chen implied that the local government should increase the supply of land to balance the demand for housing. Regarding the supply and demand for money, he said that the money supply has increased by a wide margin since the beginning of the century. Most of the money has gone to the construction business including the housing market.

Chen also dismissed the idea of introducing a real estate property tax to curb the price of housing. He believes that, before the institutional mechanism of the real estate market improves fundamentally, tax increases may lead to a new boost in the price of housing.

Source: Caixin, April 16, 2017
http://economy.caixin.com/2017-04-16/101079053.html