Chinese property prices witness mixed growth in April

Property prices in major Chinese cities showed mixed growth in April, with more cities reporting month-on-month increases in new commercial housing prices from March and lower prices for resold housing units, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
April brought reports of month-on-month price growth for new commercial homes in 56 of the 70 cities currently being surveyed by the NBS, compared to 50 cities reporting month-on-month growth in March.
New home prices declined from a month ago in 9 cities and stood unchanged in 5 cities, while 26 cities posted smaller monthly price gains. All of the cities that witnessed home price hikes posted increases of less than 1 percent, said the NBS.
Just 41 cities reported month-on-month price increases for resold housing units in April, down from 44 in March, according to the NBS.
Sixteen cities reported month-on-month price declines for secondhand homes in April. Secondhand home prices stayed unchanged in 13 cities, up from 10 in March, the NBS said.
Looking at annual figures, three major cities reported year-on-year declines in new commercial home prices last month, up from two in March. A total of 52 cities saw year-on-year growth in new home prices, said the NBS.
Secondhand home prices dropped in 8 cities from one year ago, while 45 cities reported declines in year-on-year price growth from a month ago.
The NBS stopped releasing overall housing prices for 70 major cities in January of this year, citing the fact that overall price figures for these cities failed to reflect regional differences. The NBS is also using a new surveying method to determine price changes.
The Chinese government has repeatedly stressed its efforts to cool the runaway property market and adopted various measures to curb rising property prices, including restricting residents in major cities from buying second or third homes, requiring higher down payment requirements for mortgages and instituting new property taxes in the cities of Chongqing and Shanghai.
The government has also introduced a raft of new monetary policies that have raised borrowing costs for developers and reined in market liquidity, including bank interest rate hikes and higher requirements for bank reserve ratios.
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