Home prices rise in fewer Chinese cities

By Cherry Cao | February 24, 2014, Monday |

Online Edition

THE number of Chinese cities seeing gains in home prices fell in January from a month ago as austerity measures coupled with tightened credit continued to ease buyers' sentiment.

Excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, prices of new residential properties climbed month on month in 62 cities around the country, according to data released today by the National Bureau of Statistics, which tracks both new and existing housing prices in 70 major cities. That compared to 65 cities in December.

In the existing home market, meanwhile, 48 cities registered price increases from a month earlier, a decrease of 16 from December, the bureau said.

"Fewer cities recorded month-on-month price increases in January while for new homes, the average growth rate also moderated from 0.51 percent in December to 0.49 percent last month," said Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the bureau.

"Further tightened property curbs introduced by some city governments late last year as well as tightened credit at commercial banks jointly helped cool off the sentiment among home-seekers."

In January, 25 cities registered smaller monthly gains in new home prices, according to the bureau. In the four first-tier cities, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen all saw their monthly new home price growth narrow by 0.1 percentage points compared with December while the month-on-month growth rate in Guangzhou remained unchanged from a month earlier.

On a year-on-year basis, 69 cities recorded new home price hikes, unchanged from December. Among them, 37 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen saw smaller yearly gains, an increase of eight from December, the bureau's data showed.

An earlier report released by the China Index Academy also suggests a similar trend, that the country's housing market is showing some cooling-off signs after a robust 2013 during which new home sales, by both value and volume, hit historical highs.

The average price of new homes in 100 cities monitored by the academy rose 0.63 percent month on month to 10,901 yuan (US$1,799) per square meter in January, moderating from a 0.7 percent gain in December, the academy said earlier this month.

Real Estate

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Home prices rise in fewer Chinese cities

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