Caixin View: Don’t Look for Property Boom in Year of the Pig

As more cities eased restrictions on local property markets in December, it seemed 2018 could mark the end of a period of tight regulation aimed at controlling housing inflation. In mid-December, Heze, a small city in East China’s Shandong province, cancelled rules prohibiting homeowners from selling their properties for two years after purchase. Such rules were designed to prevent the property market from overheating. But as both the economy and property market have cooled, such measures were deemed obsolete by Heze and a few other cities.