China’s housing rescue is too small to end crisis, say analysts

Beijing: China’s latest housing initiative is aimed at vacant properties, a major pain point in a crisis that’s dragged on for almost three years. But analysts say the package of measures is still too small to end the problem.

The decline in China’s sales of new homes accelerated in recent months, with households increasingly preferring to buy in the secondary market. That’s pushed up the stock of unsold homes and empty land to the highest level in years, discouraging new construction and threatening more defaults by developers – including large state-owned firms.