Chinese First-Quarter Mortgage Borrowing Jumps 50%

What’s new: Chinese households borrowed more money to buy homes in the first quarter as mortgage rates declined, showing a positive signal in the sluggish real estate market, a central bank official said Thursday.

In the first quarter, monthly average mortgage lending jumped nearly 50% to 590 billion yuan ($85.9 billion) from the fourth quarter of 2022, said Zou Lan, director of the monetary policy department of the People’s Bank of China, at a regular press conference to discuss first-quarter financial data.