BEIJING -- China's new home prices fell more slowly in December than a month earlier, official data showed on Saturday January 15 as marginal easing on financing curbs and promotions by property developers helped to stabilise demand.
The average new home price in China's 70 major cities decreased by 0.2 per cent in December from a month earlier in the month, which is slower than a 0.3 per cent drop in November, according to a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics China's property market has slowed since June 2021 as regulators have increased their deleveraging campaign against the bloated sector, which has triggered defaults at some heavily indebted companies, according to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.
The decline went down as authorities and property developers in multiple cities introduced measures in December to boost home sales, with local governments providing subsidies for buyers and real estate firms offering discounts.
In 15 of 70 cities, monthly prices went up from nine cities that reported price gains in November.
Zhang Dawei, chief analyst at Centaline, said the property market is slowly bottoming out after the period of tightest credit over. He said first and second-tier cities will be the first to emerge from the downturn.
In December, new home prices increased by 2.6 per cent year-on-year, which is slower than the 3.0 per cent growth recorded in November.
In a recent note, Oxford Economics analysts said they expect central and local authorities to take steps to contain risks from defaults by property developers, such as increasing credit to the sector and changing the three red lines policy to curb borrowing by developers.
The extension granted by bondholders to the Chinese Evergrande Group came as authorities emphasised the need to maintain economic stability.
The research director of the Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institute, Yan Yuejin, said he expects property policies to continue to be softer in the first quarter due to the large economic impact of the real estate market.
The December data shows that home prices are not falling further.