New | China’s home prices continue to cool in January
Fourteen of 15 Chinese cities recorded declines or no change in prices for new homes in January, with Guangzhou the sole holdout
China’s residential property market continued to lose heat in January, with 14 out of 15 cities under the government’s scrutiny reporting declining or unchanged prices, in the latest evidence that the state’s heavy-handed curbs on the property market are having an effect.
Guangzhou was the sole city among the 15 major cities to defy the government’s attempt to deflate the property bubble, with January prices rising 0.6 per cent from the previous month, marginally slower than the 0.7 per cent month-on-month gain in December, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics Wednesday.
Shanghai’s prices of new homes fell 0.1 per cent in January, compared with December, according to data by the National Statistics Bureau, while Beijing prices were unchanged.
As many as 20 provincial and local authorities across China rolled out a raft of administrative measures starting last October to restrict mortgage loans, curb second-home purchases and crack down on developers who were overbuilding on cheap financing.
Additional measures were introduced after the Lunar New Year, including the government’s direct intervention in new home prices, increases in mortgage rates and an outright ban on asset managers channelling their funds into the property market of 16 cities. The 16 cities are those 15 cities closely monitored by NBS plus Suzhou.
The latest data suggest “further stabilising” among the first and second-tier cities in China, said Liu Jianwei, an economist with the NBS.
