BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s January new home prices fell for the seventh straight month, official data showed on Friday, even as policymakers stepped up support to restore confidence to the debt-ridden sector.
New home prices fell 0.3% month-on-month after dipping 0.4% in December, according to Reuters calculations based on National Bureau of Statistics(NBS) data.
Prices were down 0.7% from a year earlier, compared with a 0.4% fall in December.
China has been ramping up measures to arrest a property downturn, including announcing on Tuesday its biggest ever reduction in the benchmark mortgage rate, although analysts believe its impact on home price will be limited given existing mortgage holders will not benefit until next year.
(Reporting by Ella Cao, Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo. Editing by Sam Holmes.)
