Photo taken on May 16, 2016 shows a real estate project in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province. File Photo:Xinhua

More than 50 Chinese cities have adjusted their home purchase policies by adopting measures such as easing purchase restrictions and encouraging trade-ins of urban residential housing to promote home sales and the healthy development of the real estate market.

Only six provinces and municipalities in the country, including Hainan and Tianjin, have not completely lifted previously imposed restrictions.

Analysts said that the house purchase restriction policy is gradually passing into history. Purchase limits were introduced in the past when housing prices rose too fast. Now that the market is no longer full of speculative demand, the eased purchase restrictions are in line with the law and expectations.

Among the latest moves, Hangzhou, the capital of East China's Zhejiang Province and Xi'an, the capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, announced on Thursday the full removal of all previous restrictions on home purchases.

Potential buyers in Hangzhou and Xi'an no longer need to meet conditions such as having a local hukou (residence permit) or local social security account, and there is no longer a limit to the number of apartments each person is allowed to buy, local housing administrations announced.

Many real estate brokerages in Hangzhou said that their phones "blew up" with questions about home purchases, after the restriction was lifted.

"Hangzhou's policy will contribute to the overall relaxation of policies in other cities across the country. It is a landmark event for local housing policies, after major changes in the supply and demand relationship of the real estate market," Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute, told the Global Times on Sunday.

On Friday, many shares of developers rose by the 10 percent daily ceiling, something that hadn't happened for a long time, showing the continued recovery of market confidence.

In late April, Chengdu, the capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, said that it would abolish restrictions on home purchases starting from April 29, including the housing lottery system and purchase qualifications for commercial housing.

Other provincial capitals, such as Changsha, Central China's Hunan Province and Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, and first-tier cities such as Shenzhen, in South China's Guangdong Province, also moved to ease their policies to support purchases and trade-ins of houses.

Beijing, for example, adjusted its home purchase restriction policy on April 30, the first adjustment in 13 years, which greatly stimulated the city's property market during the May Day holidays.

"I sold more than 10 houses outside the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing, after the city eased home-purchase restrictions from April 30," a sales manager surnamed Feng at the Beijing 5i5j Real Estate Brokerage Co, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Many sales managers canceled their May Day holidays (May 1-5) travel plans to deal with customers, Feng said.

According to a notice released by the Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, local families with a Beijing hukou can buy one additional house outside the Fifth Ring Road, even if they already own two apartments in Beijing.

"Every sales manager took more than 10 groups of prospective buyers each day to see homes during the May Day holidays. There would have been more customers if the eased policy wasn't released on the evening of April 30, as many Beijing residents had made travel plans outside the city or were already on the road," said Feng.

A Beijing resident, who declined to be identified, bought an apartment outside the west Fifth Ring Road in Beijing's suburban Shijingshan District right after the new purchase policy was announced.

"I started renovating the house during the May Day holidays. Our whole family helped buy building materials during the holidays," the Beijing resident told the Global Times on Sunday.

It is expected that the national property market will gradually pick up momentum in the coming weeks, which will accelerate the recovery of the real estate sector, Yan said.

The most recent meeting of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Political Bureau on April 30 called for new measures to support the property sector.

The meeting called for research on policies to reduce housing inventories and improve the quality of newly added housing, noting that efforts should be pursued to establish a new model of the real estate development, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

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