戴德梁行：今日全球楼市速览(2010.02.04)

Mainland China
 
1.     More banks in Shanghai are joining the Bank of China in tightening the policy on a 30% discount on 1st home mortgages to curb risks. They include China Construction Bank, China Everbright and Fujian-based Industrial Bank, sources said. "The days of easy access to the 30% discount on mortgages have expired," said a source who declined to be named. "It's definite that it will be much more difficult to enjoy preferential rates in the future." Previously, almost all 1st home mortgage applicants could enjoy the 30% rate discount and only needed to make a 20% down payment on first homes. But now only applicants with good credit history and who make a 40% down payment can avail themselves of the 30% discount, sources said. But some lenders such as the Bank of Communications and Industrial and the Commercial Bank of China are still keeping their current mortgage policy of 30% discount and 20% down payment. But credit officers at the sub-branch level said more tightening moves are likely after the Spring Festival. The Shanghai Bureau of the China Banking Regulatory Commission conducted a citywide test on individual mortgages and found that the bad loan ratio on these mortgages would rise to 1.28%, 2.6 times more than usual, if housing prices fall 10% in the city, the regulator said yesterday. "The pressure test on individual mortgages is far from optimistic," the banking regulator said. The ratio would rise to 1.51% if home prices fall 20% and further jump to 2.08% if home prices tumble 30% in the city. "A tighter trend is inevitable," said a credit officer from a big 5 bank. "It's only about the timing." Last year, new individual mortgages topped RMB107.1bn in Shanghai, up RMB98.2bn from a year earlier. People from outside the city, including expatriates, accounted for 35% of the new individual mortgages in 2009. In Shanghai, prices of existing properties rose to RMB14,700/sq m on average in Dec, an annual surge of 41% while prices for new homes rose to an average of RMB20,187/sq m in Dec, up 65% from a year earlier. The outstanding value of property loans grew 28.1% to RMB760.4bn by 31 Dec. (Shanghai Daily).

2.     The Nanjing government has cancelled the sale of a residential site to a consortium of Wharf (Holdings) and China Merchants Property Group because the balance of the land premium was still outstanding. The Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Land and Resources said it cancelled the deal for the residential site in Nanjing because the consortium did not complete the deal and pay the balance of the land price in two years. It said the initial deposit of HK$245 million had been forfeited. In 2007, Wharf formed a 50-50 joint venture with China Merchants Property for the site. The consortium acquired the site for 2.41 billion yuan (HK$2.74 billion) at auction in December 2007, the previous mainland property market peak. Wharf yesterday said the consortium decided to terminate the project in 2008. The respective financial impact was fully booked into Wharf's 2008 accounts. It did not reveal the reason for the termination. It is the first Hong Kong developer to be penalized by the government for not completing a site purchase. (SCMP)
Hong Kong
 
1.     Hopewell Holdings and its highway construction unit plan to invest nearly HK$12 billion in the next six years in Hong Kong and Guangdong to develop residential and commercial projects and build expressways. By 2016, Hopewell will invest HK$9.2 billion to develop properties in Wan Chai, said Thomas Jefferson Wu, the managing director of Hopewell and its subsidiary, Hopewell Highway Infrastructure. (SCMP)