EFFORTS in the past four years to rebalance the property market have paid off and it is " a lot cooler now" ,

National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan ........

 

A landmark decision to devalue the renminbi triggered initial capital flights out of Chinese property, but that trend is unlikely to last in the long-term.

The People' s Bank of China (PBoC) devalued its currency by 1.9 percent against the greenback on August 11, sparking fears of excessive yuan declines. A free-falling currency typically sends worried investors rushing to park their money into offshore property hubs such as the U.S. and Australia.

But following the central bank' s re-assurance last week that it won' t allow dramatic depreciation, experts say a weaker yuan may not have a big impact on the property market.

Rick Sharga, executive vice president at real estate sales service Auction.com, told CNBC on Friday that while Chinese purchases of U.S. real estate did initially spike following the devaluation announcement, he did not expect it to continue unless the yuan significantly depreciated further.

The currency lost around 3 percent against the U.S. dollar since August 11, and was little changed at 6.3936 on Tuesday.

" A number of empirical market studies suggest that local currency depreciation against the major international currencies, such as the U.S. dollar and British pound does not necessarily lead to a downturn in the real estate market," Colliers International said in a report on Monday, referring to historical examples in Japan and Australia.

Moreover, currency depreciation won' t alter the market' s fundamental issue of oversupply, Colliers added.

But it' s a different story for property developers.

A large portion of the U.S. dollar debt outstanding in China' s private business sector has been issued by real estate companies and property developers, Credit Suisse noted in a recent report. " The principle payment on this debt has just increase by 3-4 percent and may be a headwind for real-estate projects."

Indeed, the renminbi' s devaluation adds pressure to developers' projects, as well as their U.S. dollar denominated borrowings: they have to pay more renminbi to cover for higher financing costs, Bian of UOB Kay Hian noted.

On the bright side, the pain may be short-lived.

" I believe the devaluation will likely be a short-term issue for developers. For example, China Vanke has 20 percent of dollar-denominated debt, so the yuan devaluation could cut Vanke' s earnings by 5 percent, but that will be a one-off," Dennis Yao, property and healthcare sector analyst at GF Securities Hong Kong Brokerage, told CNBC on Friday.

On Sunday, Vanke&mdash the mainland' s largest property developer&mdash reported a 0.8 percent rise in net profit for the January-June period.

" But in the absolute worst scenario, further currency depreciation could cut earnings of developers by 20-30 percent," Yao warned.