BEIJING: New home prices in Major Chinese cities slowed their ascent in May compared to year prior as month-on-month price growth ended a recent streak of acceleration. The cost of new housing across 70 major cities rose 10.4 cent in May year on year, according to a weighted average from Reuters based on data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics. The reading marked a sixth straight month of deceleration from a peak of 12.6 per cent in November. Improvement in short-term price trends stalled after three months of acceleration, with average housing prices up 0.7 per cent month on month in May, unchanged from April. In month-on-month terms, average prices rose in 56 out of 70 cities, compared to growth in 69 cities in April. Prices fell in 9 cities (up from 8 in April) and were unchanged in 5 (up from none). Major urban centres saw growth inch lower, according to a straight average of data for top-tier cities’ price trends issued by the statistics bureau. Month-on-month prices in those cities moderated from a rise of 0.1 per cent in April to growth of just below 0.05 per cent in May.
In year-on-year terms price growth for most major cities slowed as well, but remained in the double digits for all but Shenzhen. Beijing new home prices grew 14.6 per cent year on year, down from 17.4 per cent in April, while a straight average for the 15 listed top-tier cities dropped almost 3 percentage points to annualised growth of 16.2 per cent. Taken as a whole the latest data suggest that, in addition to slowing long-term price growth, short-term acceleration in China’s property markets may be stalling out out as well.
