China home prices fall at fastest pace in decade despite revival efforts
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Prices of new and existing homes in China saw the steepest drop in a decade in April.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
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BEIJING - China’s home prices fell at a faster pace in April, underscoring why the government is stepping up efforts to tackle the years-long property crisis.
New-home prices in 70 cities, excluding state-subsidised housing, slid 0.58 per cent from March, data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China showed. Values of existing homes fell 0.94 per cent. Both were the steepest declines in a decade.
Policymakers are accelerating efforts to revive demand for homes and address a glut in supply. Worries over residential values, unfinished apartments and job security are deterring buyers, prolonging a property slowdown that is dragging on the world’s second-largest economy.
“Prices are expected to drop over the next few quarters as more home owners list existing properties to take advantage of new policies such as lower mortgage rates and down payments,” Mr Jeff Zhang, an analyst at Morningstar in Hong Kong, said before the figures were released.
From a year earlier, new-home prices fell 3.51 per cent in April, steeper than March’s 2.7 per cent drop, the statistics bureau said. Existing-home prices dropped 6.79 per cent. Both were record declines since the bureau began the current method of collecting data in 2011.
On the supply side, the government is considering a proposal to have the local authorities buy millions of unsold homes, in what would be one of the most ambitious attempts yet to salvage the market, Bloomberg reported this week.
Senior government and bank officials were expected to meet to discuss the plan on May 17
To spur demand, cities from Beijing to Shenzhen have been relaxing home-buying rules since late April. Some, like Hangzhou, have even scrapped restrictions altogether. BLOOMBERG
