Nanjing, Jiangsu province, recently eased restrictions on property sales, which experts and market insiders said will help unleash local demand for housing purchases.

The city government said on Monday that commercial residential properties can be traded with real estate ownership certificates, removing the restriction on property sales that required a minimum three-year holding period for the certificates. Such restrictions were implemented in 2017 to curb the then-overheated housing market.

Since the second half of 2024, many cities have eased or lifted housing sales restrictions, such as Shenzhen and Dongguan, Guangdong province; and Xiamen, Fujian province.

Jiang Haiqin, deputy director of the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Housing Security and Real Estate, said that in the first two months, transaction area in Nanjing of new homes and existing homes increased by 29.9 percent and 16.7 percent year-on-year, respectively.

Jiang said the bureau and other government departments have introduced a series of measures, such as more support for young homebuyers, rolling out more favorable credit and loan services, and increasing subsidies for upgraded purchases.

In terms of the housing provident fund, the provincial capital also expanded on Monday the scope of using the fund in purchasing homes, and allowed using it to pay monthly rent fees to facilitate services for newly settled residents and the younger generation.

Zhu Keyu, deputy director of the Nanjing Housing Provident Fund Management Center, said that with demand for home purchases increasing, how to better meet such demand from homebuyers, and have the social security and housing provident funds play a bigger role to this end, will be a major focus of the center.

Yan Yuejin, deputy head of the Shanghai-based E-House China R&D Institute, said Nanjing's policy changes reflect local government efforts to update real estate measures tailored for the local market.

"Also, housing policies in the second quarter will continue to be relaxed, creating a more favorable environment for the development of the real estate market," Yan was quoted by Securities Times as saying.

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