China’s home prices continue to stabilize

2017-10-23
Xinhua

BEIJING — China’s property market continued to show signs of cooling as home prices were falling or posting slower growth in major cities amid tough control policies, official data showed on Oct 23.

On a yearly basis, of the 70 cities surveyed in September, the pace of new home price growth slowed in 15 major cities compared with the same month of last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

On a month-on-month basis, new home prices fell or remained flat in the 15 cities in September, according to the NBS data.

Both new and second-hand residential housing prices in the country’s first-tier cities tumbled 0.2 percent compared with a month earlier, while new home prices in second-tier cities climbed 0.2 percent month on month, on par with growth in August.

In smaller third-tier cities, new and second-hand home prices went up 0.2 and 0.3 percent respectively, lower than the growth last month.

It marked the 12th consecutive month that both new and second-hand home prices in the first-tier cities slowed growth from a year earlier.

The data provides fresh evidence that China’s property market boom is running out of steam as government continues cooling measures to squeeze asset bubbles.

Since late last year, dozens of local governments have passed or expanded restrictions on house purchases and increased the minimum downpayment required for a mortgage.

The market was also cooled by relatively tightened liquidity conditions as the government moved to contain leverage and risk in the financial system.

Earlier data from the People’s Bank of China showed that loans to China’s real estate sector continued to grow at a slower pace, with outstanding loans up 22.8 percent year on year to 31.1 trillion yuan ($4.7 trillion) by the end of September, 1.4 percentage points lower than the rate seen at the end of June.