http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/brea...vey-20140228-0



[BEIJING] Chinese banks have raised mortgage rates for first-time home buyers due to tighter liquidity, a private survey showed on Friday, adding pressure on a property market that has shown initial signs of cooling down.
Nearly 90 per cent of 69 bank branches in 22 Chinese cities have stopped offering preferential mortgage rates to first-home buyers, with some increasing the rates 5 to 10 per cent above the benchmark rate, according to a survey by CRIC, a unit of real estate services firm E-House China.
Less than 3 per cent of the respondents still offer preferential mortgage rates, the survey showed.
That compared with 21 per cent of bank branches offering discount mortgage rates to first-time home buyers in the previous survey conducted in December 2013.