China housing market restricts mortgages for foreigners
China limits mortgage loans for foreigners to stem investments. Here, two Chinese workers walk pass a huge signboard for a property project in Qingdao, eastern China’s Shandong province.
Foreigners looking for a piece of China's property market may be out of luck.
The country's economic planners have moved against non-Chinese citizens buying homes here, curbing banks from extending home mortgages for non-Chinese citizens.
The move was explained by the National Development and Reform Commission, the government's central economic planning body, as an attempt to help cool China's property sector, though it offered no data on how many foreigners buy homes in China or how their purchases might affect the overall market. The new restrictions, according to Chinese media, will penalize banks for giving mortgages to foreigners.
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"When evaluating the foreign-exchange quota for medium- and long-term debt [loans with a maturity period of more than one year], we mainly examine the loans for fixed-asset investment. Those medium- and long-term loans given to foreigners for the purposes of home purchases will not be arranged," the NDRC said in a statement, according to China Daily.
China has been looking for way to slow down the heated property, seen by many as a major trouble spot in the country's economy.
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