Property market shows stronger recovery signs

BEIJING — China on Monday released its latest housing price data, indicating that the property market in the world's second-largest economy is on a stronger footing for recovery, supported by a raft of policy measures.

In the country's 70 large and medium-sized cities, the decline in prices for commercial residential units narrowed on a year-on-year basis in November, said the National Bureau of Statistics.

The 70 cities are categorized into three tiers nationwide, and each tier reported a narrowed decline last month.

In the four first-tier cities — Beijing; Shanghai; and Guangdong province's Guangzhou and Shenzhen — new home prices dropped 4.3 percent year-on-year, a decline narrowing 0.3 percentage point from October.

Notably, Shanghai — China's top economic hub — saw a 5 percent increase in new home prices last month, the NBS said.

Second-hand home prices in the first-tier cities fell 8 percent last month, 1.6 percentage points narrower than the decline in October.

For the 31 second-tier and 35 third-tier cities across the country, data also showed narrower drops in both new and second-hand home prices in November, the NBS added.

On a month-on-month basis, new home prices in the four first-tier cities remained flat in November, compared with a 0.2 percent decline the previous month. Second-hand home prices in these cities rose 0.4 percent.

Out of the 70 cities nationwide, 17 reported month-on-month increases in new home prices in November, up from just seven cities in October.

At a key meeting in late September, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee said that efforts must be made to "stabilize the property market and reverse its downturn".

Since then, various departments have taken steps to adjust housing purchase policy restrictions, such as reducing interest rates on existing mortgage loans while promptly enhancing land, fiscal, tax and financial policies.

"These policy measures have proven to be very effective as they help unleash housing demand and reduce home purchase costs," said NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui at a news conference on Monday.

China's property market began to see positive changes in October, with transaction activities becoming much busier in November, Fu said. "With improved market expectations, the market is sustaining a sound recovery from the previous downturn."

During the annual Central Economic Work Conference held last week to outline priorities for the Chinese economy in 2025, leaders decided that efforts should be continuously ratcheted up to further reverse the downturn of the real estate market and help stabilize it, reasonably control the supply of newly added real estate land, and promote the establishment of a new model for real estate development.

Xinhua