Heating Up a Cooling Business.docVIP

Heating Up a Cooling Business 　　Zhou Jun is the manager of a Home Link outlet， a ubiquitous real estate agency in Beijing. Having worked at the company for over eight years， Zhou has witnessed ups and downs in the housing market. Recently， Zhou has sensed a new round of intense changes coming， as regulators have loosened housing market policies to stabilize the sagging sector. 　　On March 30， the People’s Bank of China， the country’s central bank， cut the minimum down payment for second homes from 60 percent to 40 percent. The same day， the Ministry of Finance （MOF） announced it would relax taxation rules on home sales the next day. 　　“Several clients of mine were anxious and called me to ask about on the new policies immediately after the release，” Zhou said. 　　“Previously， many people couldn’t afford to buy homes because the down payment requirement， the interest rate for mortgage loans and the taxes were too high. Loosening lending rules and reducing home sales taxes are definitely the right things to do if the country wants to lift the lagging property market，” Zhou said. 　　The housing market has been sluggish since March 2014 following the price surge from 2012 to 2014. 　　The demand is there―you just have to make it cheaper and easier for them to buy，”Zhou said. 　　To prevent the lackluster property market from pulling down the economy， central authorities have stepped up over the past year by loosening home-related policies， including lifting home purchase curbs， cutting interest rates， and in most recent efforts， urging local governments to balance their land supplies， reducing down payment requirements and loosening taxation rules. 　　The policy jumble aims to spur market demand and de-stock housing inventory. As speculative activities have been basically squeezed out from the market， more easing policies are expected to be unveiled to support people’s housing demand， especially the demand to buy a second home to improve existing living conditions.