Top-tier city index shows need for local rules
Primary home prices rose 15.87 per cent in Guangzhou from February but fell 23.11 per cent in Shenzhen, the new SCMP-Creda index shows.
The market for new homes in the two top-tier cities in Guangdong province experienced sharply contrasting fortunes last month.
Primary home prices rose 15.87 per cent in Guangzhou from February but fell 23.11 per cent in Shenzhen, the new SCMP-Creda index - a collaboration between the South China Morning Post and China Real Estate Data Academy, a mainland consultancy - shows.
The divergence between two cities in the same province indicates the impracticality of any attempt by the central government to impose a nationwide policy for the property market.
As tightening measures over the past few years have started to bite, China's leaders have vowed to allow local officials bigger roles in housing policy, fuelling expectations that some cities, including Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, could relax home buying rules to lift demand.
Last month, new home prices rose 9.55 per cent in Beijing and edged up a mere 0.34 per cent in Shanghai, the index shows.