A view of a residential property project under construction in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province on May 9, 2024. The city announced the same day that it will lift all home purchase restrictions, making it among the first Chinese cities to completely abolish purchase restrictions amid a nationwide effort to shore up the real estate market. Photo: VCG

China's real estate market had a busy weekend with consultations more than doubling and a significant increase in trade volume, following the government's announcement of new housing policies to stabilize the property sector on Friday.

Real estate agents and experts told the Global Times on Sunday that they expect the relaxation of the property policies to boost home sales in the coming weeks.

A staff member from an estate agency in Beijing told the Global Times that the number of inquiries on Saturday more than doubled compared with a week ago, following the announcement of the new policies.

"The number of clients visiting properties has increased by 10 percent," the staff member said. 

Another real estate agent surnamed Ma in Shanghai told the Global Times that after the policy was announced, there was a jump in inquiries from potential home buyers who previously took a wait-and-see attitude.

"The number of weekend home visits doubled compared with previous weeks," Ma said, adding that quite few of his customers are waiting for the further relaxation of policies, such as the removal of all purchase restriction measures in Shanghai.

Another sales agent in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, told the Global Times that there was a "significant increase in trade" over the weekend and that phone calls they received "surged dramatically."

"I received on average seven groups of potential home buyers each day last week, leading 20 of them to check properties on-site," a sales agent surnamed Zhu at the agency said.

In a fresh move, the four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen - decided to lower individual housing provident fund loan interest rates by 0.25 percentage points, starting from Saturday, to implement the rate cut announced by the People's Bank of China on Friday.

Chinese authorities on Friday announced a set of "ground-shaking" new policies to promote housing sales. It included further cutting the down payment ratio to 15 percent for first-time home buyers, lowering the interest rate of provident fund loans, abolishing the lower limit of mortgage interest rates for purchasing first and second homes, and setting up a 300 billion yuan ($41.6 billion) relending facility by the central bank for affordable housing.

The new housing policy followed a key meeting of the Communist Party of China Central Committee's Political Bureau on April 30, which stressed the need to reduce housing inventory levels.

The meeting called for research on policies to reduce inventories and improve the quality of newly added housing, noting that efforts should be pursued to establish a new model of the real estate sector development, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The reduction of the down payment, deemed a massive cut, reflects the central government's determination to stabilize the property market and prices, and it will reduce the financing burden on home-buyers, Yang Delong, chief economist at Shenzhen-based First Seafront Fund, told the Global Times on Sunday.

"The new policy is meaningful and supportive for purchasers looking to settle down, benefiting young people the most, who have the greatest demand to buy their own homes to start a family," a Beijing-based resident surnamed Dong told the Global Times.

Prior to the announcement of the new housing policy, many provinces and cities were optimizing their real estate policies to stabilize the important sector.

A total of 450 homes were sold in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, from May 6 to May 12, representing a 40.6 percent increase compared with a week ago. A luxury property project in downtown Shanghai sold all of the plush 75 apartments in just 45 minutes on its opening on Thursday, retrieving 3.1 billion yuan in a single day.

Among the latest moves, Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province and Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, announced on May 9 the complete removal of restrictions on home purchases. 

Beijing city adjusted its home purchase restriction policy on April 30, allowing more qualified buyers to purchase one more home outside the Fifth Ring Road.

The property market called for the implementation of more targeted and efficient destocking policies to help stabilize housing prices and boosting public confidence. As one pillar industry of the national economy, the new housing policy is expected to lead to more home sale which will promote a stable recovery of the Chinese economy, Yang said.