Top News

Fewer cities report home price growth in May

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-18 18:49

BEIJING -- Less Chinese cities have seen month-on-month decline in prices of both new homes and second-hand homes, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Saturday.

The NBS said in a statement on its website that month-on-month price growth for new commercial homes were reported in 50 out of the NBS's statistical pool of 70 major cities, compared to 56 cities reporting month-on-month growth in April.

New home prices declined from a month ago in nine cities and stood unchanged in 11 cities, while 27 cities posted smaller monthly price gains, said the NBS.

As for resold housing units, 23 cities reported second-hand home price declines month-on-month in May, up from 16 in April. Second-hand home prices stayed unchanged in 11 major cities in May from April, according to the NBS.

Related readings:  Hong Kong property prices 'quite frightening'  Property prices are too high, says Tsang  23% of foreign investment went into property in 2010  City property market overheating: S

On a year-on-year basis, prices of new commercial homes declined in three cities, including Hangzhou and Sanya, both of which were hot spots for real estate speculation. Meanwhile, 36 cities saw lower year-on-year growth, up from 29 in April, said the NBS.

Secondhand home prices dropped in four cities from one year ago, while 29 cities reported declines in year-on-year price growth from April.

The NBS stopped releasing overall housing prices for 70 major cities in January, citing the fact that overall price figures for these cities failed to reflect regional differences. The NBS is also using a new surveying method to determine price changes.

The government has adopted various measures to cool the property market and curb rising prices, including restricting residents in major cities from buying second or third homes, requiring higher down payments for mortgages and instituting new property taxes in the cities of Chongqing and Shanghai.

But citizens are not so optimistic about the market as there has not been a solid drop in home prices. A latest central bank survey of urban bank depositors has found that more than one third of respondents anticipated home prices to stay stable in the second half of the year.

The survey, which is carried out quarterly among 20,000 urban bank depositors in 50 major cities, said 25.9 percent of the respondents said prices would continue to rise, while only 18.9 percent expected a decline in prices.

Meanwhile, the survey showed that 74.3 percent of residents said housing prices in the second quarter were "too high to afford," almost the same with that of the first quarter.