Home trading volume down, prices still high

Housing trading volume in some Chinese cities slumped 60 percent since the central government released 10 tightening polices to curb the overheated property market a month ago, but the average transaction price still stuck to the high end and some property developers even raised prices for some projects against the market trend, Chinanews Online reported Monday.

The report said as home buyers had increasingly higher expectations that the housing prices would fall, they tended to choose a wait-and-see attitude.

According to statistics released by the Beijing municipal bureau of statistics, April home prices in Beijing increased by 14.7 percent year-on-year, 2.4 percentage points higher than March, and added 2.6 percent from the previous month.

However, the total trading volume in April amounted to 1.19 million square meters, down 41 percent from March, and the volume shrank even more between April 14 and May 13 as Beijing had adopted the curbing policies on April 14.

According to statistics provided by the Beijing Real Estate Transaction and Management website, new homes in Beijing traded between April 14 and May 13 totaled 6,846 units, 53.3 percent lower than a year ago and 39.5 percent lower than one month earlier.