China's "stealth easing" spreading out - Bloomberg

The Nomura-coined term, "stealth easing", covers the current run of Chinese measures meant to encourage growth, and prop up faltering housing markets.

Key quotes

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Patrick Wong sees wider easing as possible next quarter, but cautions that officials will be wary of fueling speculation in the biggest cities, where homes are beyond the reach of many. Nomura forecasts “major” easing, especially in tier-one and tier-two cities, including scrapping price controls and purchase and resale restrictions.

HSBC Holdings Plc is focused on a clutch of cities such as Zhuhai, across the border from Macau, which seem especially vulnerable to home-price declines after their household debt blew out. For the nation as a whole, outstanding mortgages grew 823 percent since 2007 to hit 24.9 trillion yuan ($3.7 trillion) in September, the bank said.

“As cities in China developed, they became more and more reliant on land sales, so in short, a lot of the cities will have to quietly relax the tightening policies in order to stimulate sales this year,” Wee Liat Lee, a managing director at BNP said during a briefing in Hong Kong on Wednesday.