China's real estate market roiled by default fears again, as Country Garden spooks investors

cnbc.com:

BEIJING — Two years after Evergrande's debt troubles, worries about China's real estate sector are coming to the forefront again.

Country Garden, one of the largest non-state-owned developers by sales, has reportedly missed two coupon payments on dollar bonds that were due Sunday. Citing the firm, Reuters said the bonds in question are notes due in February 2026 and August 2030.

Country Garden did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on the reports.

Meanwhile, Dalian Wanda saw its senior vice president Liu Haibo taken away by police after the company's internal anti-corruption probe, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing a source familiar with the matter. Dalian Wanda did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Hong Kong-listed shares of Country Garden closed more than 1.7% lower on Wednesday, after sharp declines earlier in the week.

«With China's total home sales in 1H23 down year-on-year, falling home prices month-on-month across the past few months and faltering economic growth, another developer default (and an extremely large one, at that) is perhaps the last thing the Chinese authorities need right now,» according to Sandra Chow, co-head of Asia Pacific Research for CreditSights, which is owned by Fitch Ratings.

An investor relations representative for Country Garden didn't deny media reports on the missed payments and didn't clarify the company's payment plans, Chow and a team said in a note late Tuesday.

The report noted negative market sentiment spillover to other non-state-owned developers such as Longfor. Shares of Longfor closed about 0.8% higher Wednesday in Hong Kong after trading more than 1% lower during the day.

«Overall homebuyer sentiment is likely to also suffer as a