By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-10-18 05:33:34 | Updated at 2024-10-18 08:45:41
3 hours ago
China’s home prices fell by the most in nine years in September, extending a decline for the 16th consecutive month and underscoring the challenges to revive the sector despite a top government official saying that the market has started to “bottom out” following a slew of supportive measures.
New home prices dropped 6.1 per cent across 70 mainland cities from a year earlier, the biggest decline since May 2015. The decline expanded from a 5.7 per cent slump in August, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday.
New home prices in the four tier-1 cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen – fell 0.5 per cent month on month in September, following a 0.3 per cent decline in August, the data showed. Tier-2 cities such as Tianjin, Wuhan and Chengdu, and tier-3 cities such as Dali, Xuzhou and Huizhou saw a 0.7 per cent drop last month, compared with 0.6 per cent in August.
Prices of second-hand homes fell 1.2 per cent on average in September in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, widening by 0.3 percentage points from August, according to the data. Prices fell 0.9 per cent in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, contracting by 1 percentage point month on month.
“The housing market is experiencing a deep adjustment, as a ‘bottom’ is being formed gradually through three years of overcorrection,” said Yan Yuejin, vice-president of Shanghai-based E-House China Real Estate Research Institute.
Once a growth engine powering a quarter of China’s gross domestic product (GDP), the property sector has now become a drag on the economy since a nationwide campaign began in late 2020 to deleverage developers and rein in debt. China’s GDP grew 4.6 per cent for the third quarter from a year ago, worsening from the 4.7 per cent growth in the second quarter, according to the official data released on Friday.
