China's housing market further stabilizes in July

NEW home prices in 15 Chinese cities, including first-tier and some key second-tier ones, continued to record slower year-on-year growth in July as tightening policies to cool down the market proved effective, data released today by the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

The year-on-year price increase of new homes in the 15 cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing and Chengdu, decelerated by 0.8-4.9 percentage points compared with June, according to the bureau, which monitors prices in new and pre-owned home markets in 70 major cities.

On a month-on-month basis, new home prices in five cities posted gains, with Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, registering a rise of 0.4 percent, the largest monthly hike among all gainers, which also includes Hefei, Xiamen, Wuhan and Jinan.

“For 10 consecutive months, prices of new and pre-occupied homes in first-tier cities recorded slower year-on-year growth,” said Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the bureau.

“On a month-over-month basis, prices of new and pre-occupied homes in the four gateway cities remained flat and fell by 0.1 percent respectively.”

In second-tier cities, year-on-year price growth of new homes dropped for the eighth straight month in July, and price growth of pre-owned homes shed for the sixth consecutive month, the bureau’s data showed.

In Shanghai, new home prices were flat from June and gained 8.4 percent from the same period last year, the bureau’s data showed.

Nationwide, new home prices in 14 cities either registered a fall or remained unchanged from a month earlier, up from 10 in June. In the existing home market, 16 cities saw either price drops or no changes from a month earlier, an increase of six from June.

On average, new and existing home prices in the country’s second-tier cities added 0.4 percent from June, both retreating 0.2 percentage points. In third-tier cities, new home prices gained 0.6 percent on average from a month earlier and the cost of pre-owned houses climbed 0.4 percent, both a withdrawal of 0.3 percentage points, the bureau’s data showed.