Info comes via ING on China's new national real estate registration system.

  • Every transaction of real estate in Mainland China will now be recorded in the national system.
  • Before this, records were available mostly at the city level.
  • This implies two potential policy developments.
    • The first is the long-awaited property tax, which is currently only at an experimental stage in Shanghai and Chongqing. This tax can be rolled out to the whole nation as the system now knows who owns more than one property. The implementation of such a tax will help to reign in speculation on home prices.
    • Secondly, home purchase restrictions could be applied not only at the city level but also at the national level.
  • This is not to say that the government will implement such policies in 2023. The economy has just started to recover, and the home market is still quiet. These policies would be left for the coming boom cycle.

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I suspect ING are very much correct on this meaning little this year. IAs the property sector recovrs though it'll give Chinese authorities a potential counter-cyclical tool ... if used that way of course.

china property sector trouble