China’s housing market continued to show a modest slowdown in February as new data show that price growth was capped by discounts in some cities while the Lunar New Year holiday had an impact on sales overall.

Average new-home prices issued by data provider China Real Estate Index System on Friday showed prices grew 10.79% in February from a year earlier, compared with January’s 11.1%, which also slowed from December’s 11.5%.

The survey tracks new-home sales in 100 Chinese cities. The average price in February rose 0.54% compared with January, the survey said. That is down from 0.63% in January over December, which was the slowest on-month gain in more than a year.

More customers are staying on the sidelines since some property developers started to introduce price cuts from mid-February, sales agents said. In Hangzhou in east China, at least two property developers introduced discounts on their new homes last week.

While January and February are typically slower periods for home sales, some observers have warned that housing prices in China may cool in 2014 because many developers are concerned about clearing inventory in places where there is an oversupply of homes, especially in tier two and tier three cities.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304709904579410711546149156

As housing reform continues to be part of the Obama administration’s agenda, differences between the mortgage market in the United States and that of other countries have come to light. For instance, how do domestic mortgage products differ from those offered in Canada, a country considered the most comparable to the Unites States?

Here are three critical differences between the home lending market here and in our closest neighbor to the north.

30-year mortgages? Never heard of them While the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage has become a staple in the U.S., Canada doesn’t offer anything remotely similar. The longest term for a home loan in the North Country is five years, with the amount amortized over a 25-year period. Canadian banks also offer fixed-rate mortgages for two-year, three-year, and four-year terms.

This means Canadians can never count on having a particular loan interest rate last more than five years. At the end of the loan’s life span, borrowers can refinance, but prepaying a loan early to take advantage of a drop in rates can cost mortgage customers dearly, as prepayment fees are quite hefty.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/23/3-huge-differences-between-us-and-canadian-mortgag.aspx