• Buyers stayed on the sidelines: Although we expected a drop intransaction volume, the volume was still weaker than expected as buyershave stayed on the sidelines awaiting more price discounts to be offeredby developers after the festive season. Hence, a month may be needed forturnover to revive to December 2008 levels and, as such, we do notexpect newsflow to be positive ahead of the results season in March
.• Hopson scheduled new launches in Beijing: Hopson will launch itsWanjiang project in the 4th Ring, Beijing in mid-February atRmb10,800/sqm We estimate the development costs to reachRmb10,000/sqm so the margins for the initial launch could be razor-thin.That said, the timing of the launch could be good as Beijing relaxedhome-buying restrictions for foreigners on January 24. Previously,foreigners were restricted and could only buy one unit in Beijing andwould need to present their work permit to be entitled to buy a home.
• ICBC has not yet reset the borrowing rate of outstanding mortgages:According to Soufun, ICBC is the only bank among the big four stateownedbanks that has not reset the mortgage rates of housing loans fromFebruary 1. Borrowers are entitled to 0.7x of the PBOC benchmark rateinstead of 0.85x if they have an outstanding mortgage as of October 27,2008 and have a good credit record. However, ICBC has pushed back theimplementation date until detail guidelines are released.
[此贴子已经被作者于2009-2-3 16:35:51编辑过]