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SHANGHAI: New house prices rose moderately month on month in April in 57 out of 70 mainland cities despite government efforts to cool the residential property sector, although volumes fell.
The biggest growth was seen in Hohhot, the capital of the Inner Mongolian autonomous region, and Jinzhou in Liaoning, with both rising 0.8% month on month, according to the home price index posted by the nation's statistics bureau on its website yesterday. Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shenyang rose 0.7%.
The index showed prices were unchanged in April in three cities compared with March, and only nine cities reported a small fall in prices. In Mudanjiang in Heilongjiang, prices edged down 0.6% month on month, the biggest fall among the nine cities to register a decline. Other cities such as Nanjing in Jiangsu, Chengdu in Sichuan, Anqing in Anhui and Sanya in Hainan also posted a small decline.
In the secondary market, home prices in 46 out of 70 cities reported growth of between 0.1% and 0.8%.
Alan Chiang Sheung-lai, head of residential property for DTZ, said he had not seen developers cutting prices for new projects, but prices had been stable.
Government restrictions on the number of home purchases by individuals meant that sales volumes were unlikely to rise, he said, adding that the latest figures were also partly distorted by a sharp fall in sales volume.
For example, the monthly average number of transactions in Shenzhen has been 400,000 over the past five years, but sales fell to 160,000 in April. Last month, there were 320,000 sales in Guangzhou, compared with a five-year monthly average of 620,000.
In Shanghai, monthly sales over the past five years averaged 1.4 million, but transactions dipped to 630,000 in April. Last week, the statistics bureau also confirmed the fall in sales volume.
The bureau said the cumulative value of residential properties sold during April fell 21.44% to 324.9 billion yuan (RM150.98 billion) compared with cumulative sales worth 413.6 billion yuan in March. The total area of residential properties sold in April fell 24.17% to 64.96 million square metres from March's total of 85.67 million square metres.
The mainland government has unveiled a series of measures since last year to put the brakes on the property market.
These include raising minimum down payments for second homes, introducing residential property taxes in Shanghai and Chongqing, and limiting the number of flats that may be bought by mainlanders. Premier Wen Jiabao has repeatedly pledged to bring down housing prices to what he terms a "reasonable" level. — SCMP
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