Housing prices rise in 53 of 70 Chinese cities

Business?| ?Real estate

By Cherry Cao??|?? 2013-2-22??|?? ??ONLINE EDITION

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RECOVERY in the housing sector continued to gather pace across the country with more than 70 percent of major Chinese cities recording monthly and yearly gains in January, the National Bureau of Statistics said today.

Excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, prices rose from a month earlier in 53 of the 70 cities tracked by the bureau, compared to 54 in December. Prices were flat in seven cities while the remaining 10 registered declines.

Shenzhen in Guangdong Province led the gains with a monthly increase of 2.2 percent, followed by a 2.1 percent jump in Beijing and a 2 percent rise in Guangzhou. That compared with a maximum gain of 1.2 percent in December.

Shanghai housing prices gained 1.3 percent, up from a 0.7 percent increase in December.

Year on year, new home prices rose in 53 of the 70 cities, with a maximum gain of 4.7 percent. That compared to 40 in December, when the biggest increase was 2.4 percent.

"More developers started to offer smaller discounts or even canceled them amid the improving buying sentiment while a growing number of home seekers decided to stop waiting for prices to drop," said Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the bureau. "However, I don't see a huge rebound in home prices as the government reiterated its vows to fight housing speculation."

The State Council said on Wednesday its policy to curb housing speculation while supporting owner-occupier demand will remain as home supplies are inadequate in large cities as urbanization accelerates.

In the latest move, China's cabinet asked local governments to vigorously enforce existing austerity measures, which include home purchase restrictions and differentiated credit and tax policies, and expand a property tax trial to more cities. It also said tightening measures should be implemented if prices rise notably fast in areas without restrictions.

The statistics bureau's data also pointed to a similar trend in the existing home market with 51 cities seeing month-on-month price increases in January, compared to 46 in December. The number of cities where prices gained from a year earlier also rose from 25 in December to 36 last month.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, which monitors dozens of real estate developers across the country, said earlier this week that it expects overall property prices to rise about 5 percent this year. S&P has also revised its outlook for the industry to stable from negative amid more favorable operating and financing conditions for developers.

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Source: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/Business/2013/02/22/Housing+prices+rise+in+53+of+70+Chinese+cities

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