- Month-on-month declines in April were steepest in a decade
- Government is seeking to address excess housing inventories
China’s home prices fell at a faster pace in April, underscoring why the government is stepping up efforts to tackle the years-long property crisis.
New-home prices in 70 cities, excluding state-subsidized housing, slid 0.58% from March, National Bureau of Statistics figures showed Friday. Values of existing homes dropped 0.94%. Both were the steepest declines in a decade.
Policymakers are accelerating efforts to revive demand for homes and address a glut in supply. Worries over residential values, unfinished apartments and job security are deterring buyers, prolonging a property slowdown that is dragging on the world’s second-largest economy.
“Prices are expected to drop over the next few quarters as more homeowners list existing properties to take advantage of new policies such as lower mortgage rates and downpayments,” Jeff Zhang, an analyst at Morningstar Inc. in Hong Kong, said before the figures were released.
From a year earlier, new-home prices fell 3.51% in April, steeper than March’s 2.7% drop, the statistics bureau said. Existing-home prices dropped 6.79%. Both were record declines since the bureau began the current method of collecting data in 2011.
On the supply side, the government is considering a proposal to have local authorities buy millions of unsold homes, in what would be one of the most ambitious attempts yet to salvage the market, Bloomberg reported this week.
Senior government and bank officials are expected to meet to discuss the plan on Friday morning, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The central bank and key ministries are scheduled to brief at 4 p.m.
To spur demand, cities from Beijing to Shenzhen have been relaxing home-buying rules since late April. Some, like Hangzhou, have even scrapped restrictions altogether.
Written by: Bloomberg News — With assistance from Charlie Zhu, Emma Dong, and James Mayger @Bloomberg
The post “China Home Prices Fall at Faster Pace Despite Revival Efforts” first appeared on Bloomberg