China's home prices stable due to tight curbs
Housing markets across China continued to show cooling signs in September as austerity measures to curb speculation remained strictly in place, official data showed on Saturday.
On a month-over-month basis, new residential housing prices in China's four first-tier cities fell an average 0.1 percent last month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, which monitors home prices in 70 major cities around the country.
That compared to an average increase of 0.3 percent in August. Prices dipped in Shanghai and Shenzhen, by 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, remained unchanged in Beijing, and increased 0.4 percent in Guangzhou, the bureau's data showed.
In the existing home market, prices of pre-occupied houses in the four gateway cities, which were flat in August, slipped 0.1 percent in September. They were down 0.2 percent in both Beijing and Shanghai, remained unchanged in Shenzhen and edged up 0.2 percent in Guangzhou.
In lower tier cities, home prices in both new and existing markets grew at a slower pace last month, as varied policies to stabilize the property sector proved to be effective.
New home prices in the 31 second-tier cities and 35 third-tier cities tracked by the bureau climbed an average 1.1 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively, from a month earlier, down 0.2 and 1.1 percentage points from August. In the existing housing market, prices edged up 0.8 percent in both second and third-tier cities in September, compared to the 1.3 percent and 1.4 percent growth recorded a month earlier.
Nationwide, new home price in Xi'an of Shaanxi Province witnessed the biggest month-on-month increase of 6.2 percent, compared with 3 percent in August.
On a year-on-year basis, new residential housing prices in China's four first-tier cities rose 1.1 percent last month, down 0.4 percentage points from August, the bureau said. Prices of pre-occupied homes advanced 1.3 percent on average in the four cities, down 2.5 percentage points from a month earlier.
In the country's 15 "hotspot" cities, 11 registered month-over-month new home price growth, one less than in August. Prices fell in two and remained unchanged in the rest two cities.
Data released on Friday by the bureau demonstrated similar signs of continuous cooling in the country's property sector with a slower pace of growth in both sales and investment.
New home sales by value, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, rose 15.6 percent to 8.84 trillion yuan (US$1.27 trillion) between January and September, compared with the 16.4 percent increase of the first eight months.
By area, they increased 3.3 percent from the same period a year earlier to 1.03 billion square meters in the first three quarters, also down from the 4.1 percent growth recorded in the first eight months.
Investment in residential property development, which took up 70.8 percent of total real estate investment in the first nine months, rose 14 percent year on year to 6.28 trillion yuan, decelerating from the 14.1 percent growth recorded in the first eight months, according to the bureau.