Pre-owned house sales soar (2)

"But considering I may have to pay around 200,000 yuan ($32,100) tax once the policy is in place, I'd better make a deal right now," he said.

According to the SouFun survey, homebuyers in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai were concerned about the new policies, with 28.81 percent of respondents saying they will quicken their buying process as a result. In second-tier cities, the figure was 10.25 percent.

In Beijing, 80 percent of potential buyers said they planned to snap up an apartment in 2013, with first-home buyers expected to dominate the market.

More than 40 percent of Shanghai respondents said they would like to complete their transaction sometime between April and June, while 23 percent said they aimed to buy a property before the end of this month.

More than half of all potential homebuyers said they believed that prices will pick up further, of which 11 percent expected them to soar.

Though most industry analysts expect the new policies to benefit the new-home market, some large-scale property developers suggested they have no plans to change their pricing strategies as a result.

"We still need time to see how the cabinet's policies change the market," said a manager at Greentown China Ltd, who declined to be named.

"So far, we don't have any plans to increase the prices of our projects, but we will not cut prices either, given the market recovery."

China's real estate investment sector has strengthened amid an overall property recovery.

In the first two months of 2013, property sales growth increased from 11 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2012 to about 50 percent year-on-year, according to recent statistics by the investment arm of Royal Bank of Scotland PLC.

China sales at Longfor, a Hong Kong-listed property developer, for instance, reached 6.03 billion yuan in the first two months of this year, up 82.2 percent year-on-year.

A marketing manager at Sunac China Holdings, also a Hong Kong-listed property developer, said its pricing strategy had not changed, and the pace of releasing units to the market would remain as before.

Louis Kuijs, an economist with RBS, said: "We think the strength of property sales may not last, especially in light of the recent calls by the State Council to reinforce tight property policies.

"Nonetheless, we expect that with enough underlying demand for property, given robust income growth and urbanization, the strong financial expansion in the past six months should help support property construction in 2013."