Media365
Mainland China’s first-tier new home prices were unchanged month on month in February, ending a nine-month decline, while the year-on-year decline continued to widen from tier one to tier three cities, and analysts said it would be important to watch whether the month-on-month stabilisation can be sustained.
New home prices in first-tier cities were flat in February from January – Beijing and Shanghai each rose 0.2 per cent, Guangzhou was unchanged and Shenzhen slipped 0.3 per cent, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.
Among the 70 large and medium-sized cities nationwide, new home prices increased month on month in 10 cities and were unchanged in seven, the NBS said.
“In our view, elevated supply continues to impede the recovery of China’s property market,” said Edward Chan, a Greater China property analyst at S&P Global Ratings. “Nationwide policies to control new supply and convert existing excess supply into affordable housing will be key to stabilising the market.”
On a yearly basis, new home prices in the four tier-one cities fell 2.2 per cent year on year, 0.1 percentage point steeper than the previous month.
Shanghai was the only tier-one city to record annual growth in new home prices, rising 4.2 per cent. Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen saw declines of 2.3 per cent, 5.1 per cent and 5.5 per cent, respectively, with the pace of falls accelerating in Shenzhen.
