China home prices drop again in October

Mainland home prices fell more slowly for a second straight month in October, official data showed yesterday, but analysts do not expect prices to rise in the next few months because developers remain under pressure to sell down record inventories.

New home prices fell, month on month, in all but one of the 70 major cities tracked by the National Bureau of Statistics, the same number as in September. It was the sixth consecutive month of declining home prices but they fell 0.3 percentage point slower than in September.

"Many cities have changed their mortgage policy, developers have stepped up launches of new projects to sell down inventories, and some homebuyers have come back to the market," senior statistician Liu Jianwei said. "Therefore the month-on-month decline narrowed."

Data from consultancy E-House (China) showed 10 key cities approved 23.6 per cent more new property supply last week than in the previous week and transactions rose in cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The NBS said the steepest month-on-month fall in new home prices last month was 1.6 per cent, down from September's 1.9 per cent decline, August's 2.1 per cent and a peak of 2.5 per cent in July. Qinhuangdao, in Hebei province, saw the steepest decline last month.

The mainland property market started to crack in February due to a glut of supply.