China accelerates housing acquisition projects to stabilize real estate market

China has executed housing acquisition projects in more than 10 cities, converting unsold commercial homes to more than 10,000 units of affordable housing in the latest progress of the country's ratcheted-up efforts to stabilize the real estate market, industry data indicated.

The participating cities include Chongqing and others in provinces such as Jiangsu, Hubei, Henan, Jilin, Zhejiang, Hebei, Sichuan and Anhui, supported by a central bank lending tool that provides banks with low-cost funding to finance the acquisition projects.

Earlier this month, for instance, the Leshan branch of the Agricultural Development Bank of China in Sichuan issued the province's first loan dedicated to purchasing completed stock of commercial housing for use as affordable housing.

The loan, totaling 800 million yuan ($109.8 million), will fund State-owned enterprises in acquiring 2,994 commercial housing units, with a combined building area of 276,000 square meters, to be repurposed as affordable rental housing.

Additionally, more than 100 cities have designated the entities in charge of the acquisitions while more than 70 cities have solicited housing resources publicly, which are essential steps to execute the housing acquisition projects.

The Central Economic Work Conference, held last week, has called for advancing the disposal of existing commercial housing as part of policy efforts to continuously ratchet up work to reverse the downturn of and stabilize the real estate market.