New home sales in China decrease 23% in Q1

New home sales in China continued to suffer a double-digit decline in the first quarter of this year but sentiment among real estate developers and buyers have been gradually recovered as the negative impact of the coronavirus outbreak wanes within the country, according to a report released on Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Between January and March, more than 1.79 trillion yuan (US$252.6 billion) worth of new homes, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, were sold around the country, a year-on-year drop of 23 percent, improving from the 34.7 percent decrease registered in the first two months of 2020.

By area, new homes sold during the three-month period fell 26 percent to 192.35 million square meters, also shrinking from a year-over-year plunge of more than 39 percent recorded in the first two months of 2020.

On the inventory side, newly built homes available for sale as of the end of March stood at 252.57 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 2.3 percent. That compared with 256.97 million square meters by the end of February.

Meanwhile, investment in residential property development during the first three months dropped 7.2 percent from the same period a year earlier to 1.6 trillion yuan, evidence for some reclaimed confidence among industry players when compared with the 16 percent decline in the first two months.