As China slows down, leaders in Beijing are understandably turning to one of their favored economic growth stabilizers: housing.

A record decline in new-home prices in January has, as my Bloomberg News colleagues reported last week, prompted Chinese officials to contemplate additional stimulus measures, including reducing the required down payments on second homes and eliminating sales tax after only two years of ownership instead of five.

And why not? To this point, various price-boosting schemes have helped China ward off the kind of downturn that befell America in the late 2000s and Japan two decades earlier. Unfortunately, though, they're no longer likely to have the same impact today.