by Clare Jim and Samuel Shen
Reuters.com
Frenzied property buying in Shanghai has set alarm bells ringing that a new bubble is forming, just months after China’s frothy stock markets crashed, raising fears about a replay of the real estate bust that has hit the country’s growth since 2012.
Home prices in the city, China’s biggest financial hub, climbed 3.6 percent in February from the previous month, according to a survey by CRIC, extending the 17.5 percent annual gain it recorded in January, which was seven times faster than the country as a whole.
The property revival has coincided with investors’ abrupt loss of faith in China’s share markets, which had soared 150 percent in the year to mid-2015, only to give up fourth fifths of those gains since the summer.