China announced that controls on the property sector will continue in 2013. In order to prevent over-investment from property buyers, China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said recently that controls on the property sector will continue in 2013.  This announcement was made amidst reports of the housing market’s steady recovery over the last few months.

The world’s second largest economy has put in place tightening measures since 2010 to curb its red-hot property sector and to ease increasing public discontent over its skyrocketing home prices. These measures include higher down payment and additional property taxes.

According to the latest annual Chinese wealth report from the Boston Consulting Group and China Construction Bank Corp., some 28% of Chinese investors faced huge losses in the real estate market in 2012. About 3% of these investors saw losses of more than 30%.

Ding Yi, a developer specialising in luxury mansions in Wenzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, said: ‘Those property investors who purchased houses after 2009 have to [incur] losses of more than 30% if they want to sell their properties now.’

However, most experienced property investors were not as severely affected as those with less experience, who certainly have ‘learned a lesson’, said Ding. He added that the market has cooled dramatically after the measures were put in place, suggesting that most investors nowadays are staying out of the property market.