China’s new property presale rules risk prolonging sector downturn

More than two decades after China’s central bank recommended that developers be forbidden from selling flats before they are completed, the government has called time on the presale financing model that contributed to the excesses of the property boom and shattered homebuyers’ confidence in the market. On August 28, Beijing announced a package of measures designed to rebuild trust in the completion and handover of pre-sold homes, stimulate demand and put the country’s ailing residential market..