Home Trading in Beijing Plummets in First Two Weeks of 2010  

Property trading in Beijing in the first two weeks of this year slumped, following a string of government moves to curb soaring real estate prices.
Beijing property transaction management authority said on its website Friday that sales of future delivery residential apartments during Jan. 1 to Jan. 13 were down 63.9 percent month on month to 3,031 units, compared with 8,397 units in the first half of December.
Those for second-hand homes also plunged 73.3 percent to 4,800 units, according to data from the website.
The relatively small transaction volume was largely due to a strong wait-and-see mood from the buyers, in response to the government's efforts to deflate property bubbles, said Gao Shan, vice general manager of the Beijing-based Comprehensive Real Estate Service Corporation.
The central government has taken a series of measures, including trimming loans, intensifying land supply and market monitoring, and ending tax rebates on property transaction, to prevent home prices from further soaring since the previous month.
Chinese home prices began to pick up from February last year, and hit a 18-month high in December.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed housing prices in the country's 70 large and medium-sized cities rose 7.8 percent in December 2009 from a year earlier.