Growth in Chinese property prices slowed last month as a result of the stricter buying restrictions that have been recently introduced.
Prices of new homes, excluding state-subsidised housing, gained in 58 of the 70 cities tracked by the Chinese government in April, compared with 62 in March, the National Bureau of Statistics has revealed. According to the data, prices fell in eight cities and were unchanged in four.
Chinese authorities increased curbs in many large cities in a bid to rein in property price growth, which was showing an increase during the previous two months as buyers tried to get in ahead of other imminent restrictions.
“This round of property tightening has become stricter than the last one,” said Liu Feifan, a Shenzhen-based analyst at Guotai Junan International Holdings Co.
“More and more cities strictly capped selling prices, buying restrictions were intensified to the harshest ever, and new forms of tightening emerged, such as banning residents reselling apartments within two or three years.”
Growth slowed to 0.2% in Beijing after the local government increased deposit requirements for second-home buyers and clamped down on residential purchases under company names. Similar restrictions meant that prices fell in Shanghai by 0.2%.
Meanwhile property prices in Shenzhen (China’s hottest market early last year) were unchanged in April from March, snapping six months of decline.
According to Bloomberg calculations based on data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, sales also tapered off last month. New home sales by value rose 8% to 855 billion yuan from a year earlier which was the smallest gain since March 2015.
